The Snow Maiden
by LoweFantasy
Summary: While wandering without a purpose, Dark Link meets the one person most like him in the world: the Snow Maiden. Meanwhile, Link is sent to save a usually warm village from a curse of seemingly endless winter. When Dark Link's obsession with the Snow Maiden interferes with Link's quest to save the lives of the village, Link will have to rediscover the definition of murder. Not yaoi.
1. Blizzards, Shacks, and Beauty

**I'm back! Finally had my baby (a buff boy named Kai), so now I have my brain back to work. Like before I will update on a schedule so you can trust me to not leave you hanging, but due to I have a new baby and finishing up my last semester of college you can expect to have a new chapter every two weeks rather than every week. **

**This new story is based off of an old Russian folk tale of the Snow Maiden. My readers are familiar with my love of fairytales and folktales. So please, sit back, enjoy, and give me your thoughts. I'm feeling a little rusty after not writing for a few months.**

**Also, I have discovered there aren't many decent Dark Link stories out there, which surprises me, because he's just such a fascinating character. Don't you think?**

**I love the cold, the snow, the quiet. So that is where my story will begin.**

The Snow Maiden

by LoweFantasy

Chapter 1: Blizzards, Shacks, and Beauty

It was cold. Snow pasted the ground, but not in a beautiful way. Rather, it was mostly gone, hard, and blotched with mud, adding to the overall grim gloom with the overcast sky. It was the time of winter most people hated-those few days right on the edge of spring. But he loved it. He hated sun. Hated heat. Hated that stupid romantic sparkle of snow. This was how winter should be, he figured: icy, empty, and dead. It meant that he could just be him and not be reminded of who he wasn't. He wasn't Link. Just his shadow.

His boots were already splattered with mud from walking. Where he was going he didn't know. His creator had left him without a purpose when he left out his unique identity. Sure he knew he had been created to challenge and, if possible, kill his original, but it grew old fast. After being in match after match with what seemed to be your mirror, you got bored. So here he was on the outskirts of Hyrule, just walking and listening to the lonely peace.

He let out a sigh and watched it rise.

"_Take that broken thread to the street," _he sung under his breath, "_hold it to a lover's neck, tell me if it makes you feel complete. No, rain's not coming down."_

He hated music. It was so...Link. He kept singing anyways.

"_So dirty is your city holding to a lover's neck, such a pity, such a pity."_

Where was he anyways? Oh, who cared. No one, that's what. Not that it bothered him any. He didn't need anyone, just as no one needed him. It was a mutual relationship.

As the hours drug past him and he tonelessly muttered song after song, a cold wind began to grow from the north. He found himself shivering madly, but paid it no heed. His chain mail had already turned to ice and was pressing in through his underclothes, yet it felt oddly fitting. Cold was like him, not Link. Maybe that's the name he'd give himself: Cold.

Who was he kidding? That was a stupid name.

He liked the sound of the wind, despite the fact that at some point he stopped feeling his ears and face. It was a mournful voice that didn't follow any specific tune. It was as though the cold field of barren trees he walked in was full of it, the wind, and the wind was a person like him: nameless and purposeless.

Wind? Nah. Stupid name too.

Winter?

Snow?

Mud?

...there we go. He was Mud. Dark, dirty, kind of just...there.

Listening to these thoughts, he soon got annoyed with how much of a whiney pansy he sounded like and he brushed them away.

He walked on, and the sky grew darker. The wind grew louder. On the break of evening (though it was hard to tell in the perpetual grey from the clouds), snowflakes began fluttering down like dandruff. He paused only to look up before walking on. It crossed his mind once or twice that a storm was coming, but he found himself apathetic. Let it snow. He'd just be more at home than ever once his arms and legs grew numb as well. It wasn't like there was anywhere to go for shelter anyways. At that thought he again wondered what he was doing out there, wherever 'there' was. He had just started walking and hadn't paid attention to where his legs were taking him for days.

"_Break red thread, where day bled," _he muttered, "_Break it hard, such a pity, such a pity."_

Where had he heard this song anyways? Whatever.

As the snowflakes grew fatter and came down in earnest, thrown about by the wind, he remembered the chill of the mirror lake where he had first laid eyes on his original-where he first came into being as a carbon copy. Link's eyes had been that grey kind of storm blue, and the storm reminded him of them. They were so unlike his own. But that was only because he, as a shadow, was colorless. Colorless and nameless. Dark Link could hardly be called a name. It was a stupider name than Cold, anyways.

The trees began to vanish behind curtains of wind and ice. His world was turning white, but dark. Colorless.

He took a deep breath of blizzard and paused.

This was nice.

The hairs on his neck bristled as it did whenever he was watched. He was surprised he felt it at all, due to every part of exposed skin had long ago grown numb. He snapped his lips closed and looked around wildly, but all he could see was white. This was ridiculous. Who would come for him all the way out here?

Then, against the blurr of white he thought he could see it: the faint outline of a person. He put a hand on his sword.

"What do you want?" he shouted above the wind. "If it's help you want, sorry, I'm clean out of that. Go build a snow cave or something, curl up in there."

The figure said nothing, but he was sure he could see it shifting. He tensed and debated drawing out his sword despite the pain it would be to slip it back in with his numb fingers. Dying by cold was nice. Dying painful death by monster wasn't.

But as though the blizzard parted between them, the figure became clearer all in an instant, and what he saw shocked him. As white as the blizzard about her stood a beautiful young woman. White, fluffy hair billowed about her, blending in with the snow to the point he couldn't tell where it ended and the snow began. The long, shimmery, but somewhat cottony dress she wore expose much of her ivory skin to the elements.

He couldn't help but stare. She stared at him too, but with her head cocked to the side in confusion and curiosity, her large eyes somehow bright with what could've been sadness. He eyed her bare, willowy shoulders.

"Aren't...aren't you cold?"

She shook her head and cocked her head to the other side. As the seconds passed by with him under her scrutiny, her expression melted into something pleading, though her lips never opened. She looked at him pointedly, but made no move to come nearer. He tucked his frozen fingers beneath his armpits. The blizzard still raged about them and he had to yell to be heard.

"Look, I meant what I said before, I can't help you." he snorted, wiping at the snot dribbling down his senseless nose. "I'm the last person you want helping you."

Her eyes grew brighter. For a moment he thought she was about to cry. But before he could decide whether he cared or not (of course he didn't care), the curtains of snow closed back between them and she simply vanished into the storm as though she had never been there. Sniffing, he continued on, his thoughts wandering back to an old children's story he had heard somewhere. A story about a maiden who only came out during the worst of winter storms.

#$^%$^&^(&^*&^#

Link sat inside what had to be a century old hut and listened to the blizzard rattle outside. He watched the reflection of the fire in the foggy old windows. Next to the fireplace his equipment dried along with his clothes and he had an old saddle blanket wrapped tightly around him. The storm somehow made the rickety, freezing cabin cozier, despite the fact that he hated cold. He hated winter, for that matter. Everything felt so dead and lonely.

The village he was suppose to be seeing to should have been around here, but due to the lack of visibility in the storm, for all he knew, he had already reached it. Supposedly it was in a pretty bad condition, so this shack was probably what he had to look forward too. Remembering the sad dead trees he had passed earlier when it was suppose to be late spring, he felt another pang of sympathy for the people whom the princess that had sent him called 'cursed.'

Absentmindly, he wrung water from his blond hair.

The door opened. Cold wind rushed in, frightening the fire and sending snowflakes whirling about. By the time Link had the mind to shout the door was shut again and a familiar black and white figure hunched against the door. He got over his surprise and scowled.

"You."

His shadow looked up, pale eyed and blue lipped.

"That's even stupider." he muttered.

"What are you doing here?"

He shrugged, not really looking at him. There was a glaze to his features. Link could feel his unease growing and scooted towards his sword.

"Did you follow me out here to kill me? Braved a blizzard to run me through in my underwear?"

"Against your superior knowledge, hero," Dark Link breathed, finally focusing his eyes on him to glare, "the world does not revolve around you. And sure, I bothered to come all the way out here to view you in your undies." he took a ragged breath. "Idiot."

"If you're not here to kill me," Link grabbed his sword and raised it, other hand holding his blanket to him, "then leave."

"No."

"Is that a challenge?"

Dark Link rolled his eyes. "No, it's a desire not to freeze to death. See, I hate myself a little less than I hate you. Lesser of two evils."

For a moment Link played with the idea of pushing his shadow back out into the blizzard. If he did and Dark Link did freeze to death, he'd be free of his ambushes forever. The thought was appealing. It wasn't murder if it was your darker half, was it? This thought faded away as he noticed his other's knees weakening against the door. Slowly, Dark Link slid to the floor, so pale he was almost blue. Link hesitated.

"Are...you okay?"

"Dandy."

Link's sword tip wavered. Something seemed different about his shadow today, besides the fact he was on the floor without Link having to do anything. Snow crusted his clothes and Link could see his black hair had frozen at the tips.

After a moment or two of watching the slumped man, he lowered his sword. Cautiously, he sat back down in front of the fire and wrapped his blanket about him. Silence spread out between them. When it grew out too long, Link found himself looking back in concern. His shadow had yet to move. A tiny thrill of alertness ran through him as the thought of hypothermia came to his mind.

"Uh, are you asleep?"

Nothing.

"If you want to survive so badly, you probably shouldn't let yourself fall asleep."

Still, nothing.

"Oy!"

Dark Link just sat there, eyes hidden by his now dripping black bangs. Link grabbed one of his boots and chucked it at him, hitting him squarely in the stomach. The man gave a coughing grunt and snatched up the offending boot.

"What the hell was that for?" he growled thickly. Link didn't miss the way his eyelids drooped.

"Don't fall asleep."

"Screw you."

"Do you want to die?"

"Depends on my mood."

"Oh, make up your mind. If you want to die at least have the decency to do it away from me so I don't feel guilty."

"Guilty?" Dark Link chuckled. "That's funny."

"Where have you been anyways? Terrorizing little children? Raping and pillaging?"

"Ah, now that's too much of the good life for me." His head drooped. "Now shut up, I'm tired."

"Go back outside if you want to fall asleep."

Dark Link ignored him. Link reached for another boot. Shadow or not, he wasn't going to watch a man die right next to him.

This time when he threw the boot, his shadow half-heartedly defended himself with his arm. Calling him a few choice names, Dark Link glared at him and shook his wet bangs out of his face. Before Link could react he pulled his sword out from his back and flung it at him in one smooth movement. Lucky for him it was a weak throw and the sword clanged to the floor besides him.

"This is why I want you dead." he growled, "You're damn annoying, no wonder your mother abandoned you."

"At least I had a mother."

Link could see the rage seething on the other's exhausted face. Though it was a little terrifying to see such murderous intent on a mirror of his own face, he could see a bit of warmth returning to him. At least his mouth looked less blue and his breath had grown more even.

"Why did you come out here?" Link asked again.

"And you, don't you have that princess girlfriend to slave to?"

Link ignored that stab. "So you don't know why you came out here."

"Of course I do."

"Uh huh."

"I just...I just don't care to tell..." he yawned, "a bastard like you."

"Especially when there is no reason."

"Shuddup."

"Don't fall asleep, or I'll throw something else at you."

Dark Link blinked at him blearily. "Why the hell do you care?" His words were slurring worse and worse. "Just leave me alone."

A tearing sound came from outside. Link looked up in concern. The roof wasn't in the finest condition and he would bet his last rupee that a piece of it just tore off. The wind moaned like a dead thing and rattled the window panes. The fire flickered as though touched by a breeze and he shivered.

The darker man puffed out a short, ironic laugh. "She's not happy tonight."

Link had to strain to understand him through his exhausted tongue. "Who?"

"The Snow Maiden."

He gave his shadow a skeptical look, despite the fact the man wasn't looking his way, but at his wet boots.

"Isn't that just a nursery rhyme?"

"Sure, hero. Myths and legends have never been true for you. Dragons, heroes of time, shiny triangles that grant your wishes..."

"The Snow Maiden is ridiculous, though. Those had a basis in the real world."

"...shiny triangles that grant your wishes..."

"You know what? Stuff it."

" 'ould love to. Any food on you?"

"Pfft, like I'd share with you."

"How sweet, we're like an old married couple all ready."

Link threw his scabbard this time. Lucky for his dark half, his sword was out to dry and not in it. Dark Link was expecting this and dodged it easily, despite his fatigue.

Another horrible tearing noise came from outside and a frightened mouse came scurrying out of its hole. Link could feel a cold draft sinking in from where it came. He adjusted his blanket around him and pulled his bag to him to look for some food. In a few minutes he had a poker hanging over the fire with a frozen piece of venison dangling from it.

"How do you know she's unhappy then?" he asked, "For all you know, this is her having a blast."

When Dark Link once more didn't respond, he sighed, pulled out another piece of frozen, dried meat, and chucked it at him. His shadow hardly even flinched at the contact, though he did crack a single eye open to glare at the offending meat.

"There, food." Link shifted his own piece. "You can even use the fire to thaw it out if you want."

Dark Link picked it up with two fingers and sniffed it.

"Poisoned." he muttered.

Link rolled his eyes. "That's gratitude for you."

Eventually, though, Dark Link weakly crawled his way over to the fire. Link watched as he took back his sword and fumbled with obviously numb fingers to slip on the venison to the tip, which he then hung over the fire as well. His glazed, drooping eyes watched wearily. When his meat begun to burn, Link used his homemade poker to move his shadow's sword out of the fire. It was a testament to how far gone he was when Dark Link didn't even react, but continued to stare at really nothing. Eyebrows furrowed, he peeled off and gingerly chewed his own hot meat.

"She was kinda pretty."

Link stared, surprised his other had talked, let alone that he could understand him.

"Is your tongue frozen or something?" he asked. He was beginning to wonder if he should bother pulling out another saddle blanket. The darker man wasn't shivering where Link hadn't stopped shivering since he stepped inside.

"She was all white," Dark Link continued in his quiet mumble, "I couldn't tell where the snow began and she ended. Pretty."

That decided it. Reaching into his Kokiri pouched, he felt around in its magically compacted innards till he felt the blanket and pulled it out.

"You're going to want to pull off all your wet stuff if you want this to work." he said.

Dark Link blinked. "Huh?"

"Strip. You're freezing."

He blinked again. "You're gay?"

Link smacked his forehead. Why was he even trying?


	2. Bored, Cursed, and Naked

**Well, I'm enjoying life. My baby is currently sleeping, I'm getting use to being 22, and soon I will graduate and find an agent for my Egyptian novel-now wouldn't that be just stupendous?**

**Enjoy, eat some snacks, review so I know how I'm doing, and for goodness sake stop it with the yellow snow jokes. **

Chapter 2: Bored, Cursed, and Naked

Dark Link was not in a pleasant mood when he woke up mostly naked (in his opinion), and with the original eating breakfast a good few feet away. Cold morning light lit up a shack he didn't remember. Now that he thought about it, he didn't remember this blanket either. As far as he was concerned, he didn't own a blanket that smelt strongly of horse.

"What the-"

"Before you freak out, I just saved your life."

"Like hell you did!"

The original sighed. "Your welcome."

He went to grab his sword. Upon not finding it, he jumped to his feet.

"Where's my-"

Link threw over a scabbard. Dark Link caught it with a scowl.

"Happy Birthday."

He didn't even bother to grace that with a response. Grabbing his clothes, mail, and shield next to the fire, he threw them on, drew his sword, and swung. Link, still chewing on a biscuit, swiped his leg out before the blade could reach him and Dark Link found himself on the floor.

"Look, dummy, I really don't have time for this today, so if you could just-"

Dark Link swung again, cutting Link off to block him as he scrambled to his feet.

Link growled. "You have no honor, you know."

"And you have no guts! Why can't you just die already!" Another one of his attacks was blocked. "Even out here I can't get away from you!"

"Get away from me?" By now Link was also on his feet and fully meeting his blows, biscuit still in the other hand. "You're the one who keeps ambushing me! See if I ever save your life again."

"Save my life? Who said I needed saving!"

"You were freezing to death!"

"Oh, don't tell me you were the one who-" Too angry to give voice to his thoughts, he let out a flurry of swings which Link barely had the time to block.

The ancient floorboards beneath them creaked ominously.

Link's back hit the wall.

"Look, I really don't have time for this!" he protested. Snapping noises were popping above them.

Dark Link just yelled and full on body tackled him.

In that moment, the roof finally caved in. Old wood and what had to be four feet of snow smothered the both of them.

Bruised, freezing, and battered, the two somehow crawled their way out of the debris. Link had lost his biscuit in the avalanche and turned on his counterpart, who had yet to free his legs from the mess, with a fury.

"I save your life and this is how you thank me? Oh, I forgot, you're just an evil monster! How could I have forgotten that!"

Dark Link coughed out a mouthful of snow.

"I can't believe I made the mistake of thinking you were human enough to save! You, who were created by Ganondorf, King of Evil! You bastard! You asshole!"

"I think that's the first time I've heard you swear. You're still such a child." rasped Dark Link, looking about the snow for his sword.

"You don't know me at all!"

"I'm your dark half," Dark Link stopped long enough to meet his original's eye, "I know you better than anyone, don't kid yourself."

With a closed mouth scream, Link yanked out his shield from the debris and clumsily stomped away through the snow, leaving his shadow still half buried in wreckage. Dark Link watched him go.

"I know you better than anyone." he said.

He was shaking so bad he could hardly stand by the time he managed to get him, his sword, and his shield out. Despite how hot he had felt an hour ago attacking Link, he now felt oddly empty and number than ever before. He almost missed Link, because at least in that moment of purpose he had felt something. He wondered if that hate was better than this painful nothingness he had been trying to escape for the past year. What was there to feel when you weren't truly a person? When you had no soul?

With a snort, he sheathed his sword.

"I really am pathetic."

A chill wind brushed past his neck. Shivering a bit harder now, he took in his surroundings. Besides the blue sky, everything was a blinding smooth plain of white. The mountains and their foothills broke the flat white with occasional breaks of tree skeletons and rocks, but other than that, the empty was enthralling. He took it in and felt himself blending in.

And then, he saw her. Long hair wrapped about her arms, she was even more beautiful without the storm to cloak her. She was closer this time, watching a bit aways from the wreckage. In the daylight the glacier blue of her doe-like eyes stood out against the snow. He met her gaze.

"Ah,"

The moment his breath puffed into the air she turned and vanished. He blinked in the bright sunlight.

"Weird."

With nothing else to do, he started walking in the direction of his counterpart.

$%^*(^#%^&

The village was a little better off than what Link had expected.

For firsts, none of the buildings were as dilapidated as the shack he had found shelter in last night. In fact, other than the materials were rather ragged, they were clean and well-cared for. None of the people looked like starved skeletons, though it was obvious that they could use some healthy weight, and the milk cows and sheep were well taken care of, seeing they were now the main source for food. By far the most disturbing sign of famine in the village was the lack of children under the age of three.

"Any babe died after a year of a winter like that," the grizzled town mayor told him, "and our women are too skinny now to keep any baby they conceive."

Apparently, the way the people had hung on for so long was because of their genius in trade. Using the materials they could find under the snow-such as ore, coal, and other minerals-along with their now refined cheese, they could import just enough food when the pass was clear to keep everyone going. When Link asked why the people didn't just leave, they gave him strained, desperate looks.

"We didn't think the winter would last this long," a herdsman told him, "and by the time we realized we were in trouble, the pass had been snowed through. One strong man such as yourself traveling on your own could make it, but with the blizzards coming and going as they please and the snows as evil as they are, traveling with women, children, and the old is impossible."

It was all too apparent that Link hadn't come a day too soon. Zelda had sent him specifically because, one: no one else could figure out how to help these people, and two: he had experienced a curse much like this one in another land called Termina.

But after only a few questions with the townspeople, it became obvious that no Majora's Mask or anything like unto it had come upon these people.

"You're sure nothing...unnatural passed through here?"

The village (which wasn't very large, 200 people at the very most), all shook their heads and exchanged looks.

"A winter just came and never left." said a woman.

"Please, can you help us?" asked another, "My little daughter is very sick and we've already lost so many children to this cold."

"We can't live this way for long!"

"Can you at least help us find a way through the pass?"

A cacophony of voices rose pleadingly to him. Alarmed, he raised his hands helplessly.

"I'll do everything I can!" he cried. "Please, just give me time."

There were uncertain glances, desperate faces, wringing of hands, and plenty of murmuring. Link bit his lip. The mayor exchanged a glance with his wife. He then turned back to his people.

"You heard the man! He'll do everything he can to help us, and if the royal family trust him as their best, then we should put some stock in that. Now, move along. I'm sure we all have work to do after last nights blizzard."

The crowd dissipated, still murmuring amongst themselves. The mayor plopped a hand onto his shoulder.

"You can stay with us, young man. We've got some attic space."

"You don't have to-"

"Going to sleep in the snow." he raised a bushy eyebrow. "Don't be an idiot. Stay with us, we'll even feed you. Consider it payment for your help."

Link still felt uncomfortable after seeing the stress these people were under, but he couldn't think of anything to argue against it. The mayor's wife, with warm brown eyes, gave him a wide smile creased with years of laughter.

"And you better not insult my cooking, it's the best in the world, I don't care what you eat at that fancy palace of yours."

Link laughed nervously. "I don't live at the palace, miss."

"Oh? Got your own little den then?"

"I guess you could say that."

They led him back to their cabin at the edge of town through a narrow track cut through the snow. Link was glad for this for it was only after last night that he realized how stupid it was of him to have not brought along snowshoes or something. The cabin didn't stand out from the rest of the homes besides the fact it was one of only a dozen that had a barn out to the side of it. Heavy laden pine trees squatted about it.

Up a flight of stairs and a ladder was the attic. Link had to bend over a bit to move around in it, but there were two mattresses on the floor with a brazier filled with coals at their feet. A small mountain of quilts were at their heads. A tiny window at the end let in winter light.

"It's not much," said the wife, "but it'll keep you warm."

"It's wonderful, thank you so much. "

She gave him her crinkly eye smile. "No. Thank _you_ for coming all this way to help us. Even if you can't figure out what has happened, it's nice to know little ol' us aren't forgotten out here."

"If you need anything let us know. Otherwise you're free to look through town. Dinner is at sundown."

"Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Delppy."

"No no, call me Carrol," she said, "I don't care what you call this old dope here."

The mayor chuckled. "Mayor, Mr. Delppy, Derrell, as long as I know you're talking to me I don't much care."

After thanking them profusely several more times, they left him to unpack. He had just taken out his kit from his Kokiri pouch to oil his mail and sword when a creak from behind alerted him to someone climbing up into the loft. Calming his paranoia, he turned to find a plain, gangly young man, probably only a year or two younger than him, standing awkwardly hunched beneath the attic's low ceiling. He glanced down the ladder before lowering the door.

"Hey, can I...can I talk to you?" he wiped his hands on his pants.

"Um, sure. Just who are you?"

"Oh, I'm Kane. The mayor's my dad. I got a sister too, but that's beside the point, you asked if we've seen something weird-or I mean, weird to do with this winter…"

Link lowered his oiling kit next to the brazier, sat down, and waited.

Kane pulled on his fingers, which slid between each other as though they were covered in sweat."Well...now, promise you won't tell anyone, especially my parents-and please don't judge me either, but I...I did see something weird. My friends and I, that is."

He checked the door again. Link noticed this and felt a twinge of unease.

"You see, for a few years now, even before the winter came here three years ago, there was this girl-a girl who lived in the snow, you'd see. I don't know if anyone other than me and the guys knew she was there, but, well, winter gets boring around here, and once we figured out how to make her come out of that weird blizzard she likes to keep around her we sorta made it a game to see who could get her to get the closest, because she's really shy, she is."

"Wait," Link held up a hand, "a girl in a blizzard?"

"Yeah. The snow listens to her or something." Gnawing on his lip a bit to gather his nerves, he continued, "the first winter she stayed away until somewhere in February. Then she wandered closer cause I think she finally got use to us, but the moment she came near the fire all her clothes...well, they were made of ice or something." His face filled with color. "I tell you, man, she was, just, wow-"

Then recognizing the look on Link's face wasn't one of jealousy or appreciation, he stuttered on.

"After that she seemed to lose her strength and just fell down. We thought we'd killed her or something, but then this huge wind came and blew her away and the next day the snows started to melt and spring came early. We thought it was a coincidence, but when the next winter came and Tom caught a look at her, the game begun again. This time she was more cautious, the winter lasted longer, but in March we persuaded her that we didn't know and we didn't want to hurt her, that this time the fire wouldn't hurt," his face fell. He looked away. "Of course the fire did the same thing. I know I should've said something, but-"

Link shook his head in disgust. Kane fluttered his hands about him.

"Please! I know I was a perv then, but you got to hear me out! I shouldn't've gone with them on those nights the next winter, but...well, she wouldn't be tricked a third time. But for some reason she always came, as though she couldn't help herself. She just stayed far away, just within sight, all covered in her snow clothes and watching us with those big blue eyes of hers. Then Tom, well, he-aw goddesses, the idiot, I never really trusted him like the rest of the guys. There was something, just, off about him. But he went off alone one night to find her. He didn't come back and we didn't find him until the next morning, naked and frozen dead under a snowdrift. And, after that," he started pulling his fingers again, "the snow just didn't stop. The cold never warmed-I mean it never got warmer. Spring past in snow, so did summer-the guys and I knew it had to do with her but we didn't want our parents to know that we, well, that we put a girl in that situation or what Tom might've done so we tried to take care of it by ourselves, but she never appeared again. Didn't matter how loudly we played-"

"Played?"

"That's how you draw her out. She loves music. We'd sing and dance and make up all sorts of stupid songs. I think she liked watching us, even though we'd done all that stupid stuff to humiliate her."

"Why haven't you told anyone now?"

"Who'd believe us enough to go out into a blizzard like that? Honestly, without her appearing to us it's not like we could take someone out into the snow to prove it to them. And how Tom was found looks really bad on the rest of us."

Link scowled. "What did you _do_ to her?"

The kid flapped his hands again. "Nothing! Just, you know, ogled a good deal. Maybe Tom said something rather crass, but-"

"You lured that girl out so you could see her naked even though it obviously hurt her?"

"She was the spirit of winter, or something, weren't you listening? Whenever we got her to come out, spring came! Besides," he grinned sheepishly, "you would've done the same if you had see her."

"No. I wouldn't have."

Kane took in Link's thin mouth and hard eyes and Link could tell he knew his time was up. He moved back towards the trapdoor, head bowed.

"Thanks for the information." he said.

"You bet." Kane paused. "Please, I know...just don't tell my parents. I don't want them to think worse of me than I already do myself."

"Tell them what?"

Kane gave him a weak, grateful smile before sinking down the ladder to the rest of the house.


	3. Pork, Dance, and Lonely

**It's so nice to get back to writing. I missed it so much. As to the song Dark Link was singing in the first chapter, I just pulled it out of the air. Don't tell anyone, but I write poetry in my closet when no one is home. I think most poetry is retarded, but I tend to write it when I'm not sure what to say or think. When words fail me, poetry seems to make something of them. **

**Please, review! So I know how I'm doing and what ya think. Sit back, enjoy, and dang it eat those chips and savor them! Snacks and stories are life!**

Chapter 3: Pork, Dance, and Lonely

There was once a little girl who loved her father very much, although he was rarely ever home. Most of her days were spent with her mother on their property in the mountains next to a village of Gorons. Every morning after chores she'd wander up the mountain trail to play with her rocky friends. But an hour didn't past where she didn't peer over the horizon for her father or listened for the tall-tale sound of music in which herald him wherever he went. Always he would return to her with a different instrument, in which he played for her. For hours she would dance to the sound, for it meant father was home. Father was music. And when he was home, everything was complete.

One day she opened the door to hear what had to be a flute calling to her from a distance. Excited, she ran off while her mother's back was turned. She went down the trail and into the canyon where her father usual came from. The high sweet sound of the flute echoed off the canyon walls.

As she turned about a corner, breathless with happiness, she came upon not her father, but a figure no taller than she wearing clothes like a scarecrow and with a most frightening, multi-colored mask.

It had such big yellow eyes.

The strange fellow lowered the flute he had been playing.

"Would you like to play?" he asked.

It didn't take long for her mother to notice she was missing. As she stepped outside to call her name, she was stopped by a flake of snow falling on her nose. She stared as more flakes began to fall. Stunned, she watched the peculiar June snowfall before running out in search of her little daughter.

#$%$&*&%*% #

Dark Link stumbled into the village around noon to a bustle of activity. All the noise irritated him. He would have gone back into the quiet snowy wasteland if it wasn't for the fact he felt like he was starving to death and freezing. Sleeping half frozen on a wooden floor didn't do much for your back either.

Almost as an afterthought, he sneezed.

"Dammit."

A few villagers stopped to stare at him. A good glare took care of that. Eventually someone that wasn't warded off by the death glare approached him.

"Hey," said a gangly young man. "You must be a brother of Link's or something. You two look exactly alike, did you come to help him?"

Dark Link felt his irritation grow. He didn't need to be reminded.

"Where's your inn?" he growled, ignoring the guy's question. His smile didn't falter.

"We don't really have an inn, but I could point you in the direction of some folks I know who'd be willing to rent out a room. Need food too, I 'spect?"

"Yeah."

"That'll be pricey. Food is scarce here."

"Just point."

He did so, giving Dark Link some simple directions and told him to ask for a Brother Howie of the cathedral in town.

"He should have some spare room beneath the bells or something." he considered him for a moment. "I'm Kane, by the way. You do know Link, do you?"

"Never heard of him." he grunted as he pushed past him.

He could feel the kid's eyes following him as he made his way towards the bell tower poking out above the little cabins. More people stared at him as they cleared snow around him and set up posts. What was with these people? It's like they'd never seen a guy wearing black clothes with black hair before.

He sneezed again.

"Din dammit."

By the freaking goddesses, he better not be getting sick, or he swore he'd...he'd...

"What are you doing here?"

He groaned and looked over his shoulder. The original was glowering at him, a bundle of what looked like triangular flags in his arms. Din, he did look like him. Snorting, he continued on.

"Oy! I asked you a question!"

"Go away."

"Why did you follow me out here?"

"I didn't follow you. This just happens to be the only village for who knows how long and I'm hungry-and why the hell am I explaining myself to you? Go-a-WAY." He sneezed, cursed, and viciously kicked the snow out of his path.

For some odd reason, that did it. Link didn't follow him and he soon found himself kicking snow off his boots in a humble, chilly little church. A friar with a face taken up mostly by a mouth made his way to him, his hands tucked deep into his sleeves.

"Please, good sir, I must ask you to not drag snow in-"

"Are you Brother Howie?"

The friar was caught off guard. "Yes?"

"I hear you have room to rent and food."

"Yes?"

"I'll take it." He reached for his money pouch. "How much?"

"F-fifty rupees? But sir, please, your boots-"

He stuffed a purple rupee into his hand. "The floor's made of stone, water won't hurt it."

"It has nothing to do with that, the house of the goddesses must remain clean to honor their holiness!"

"Yeah yeah..."

The friar scowled. "If you're going to have that attitude, I'm afraid I can't allow you to stay here. We have given a great deal to have this church and I will not allow you to defile it."

He couldn't help but roll his eyes. Like a bit of snow was going to defile anything. If the goddesses didn't want snow in their churches, they wouldn't have created the damn stuff. But moved by his exhaustion, his growing headache, and his ravenous stomach, he went to the doormat and wiped his boots off of all snow.

"There, happy?"

The friar looked to the ceiling as though saying a quick prayer. Then, taking a slow breath, he pocketed the purple rupee.

"Follow me."

#$%#$*^%

Link heaved on the ropes, lifting up the large canopy above the recently cleared town square. The villagers had insisted on having as the mayor said, 'a little get-together' to celebrate his arrival which was slowly turning into what looked like an all out town party. He could even smell something cooking on the freezing breeze and worried that someone was wasting their scant resources on this, which he didn't know if he could bear. As he picked up an end of the flags to string up along the edges, Kane trotted over.

"Hey! Link! You won't believe what I saw! This guy that looks just like you just walked into the village-well, you gone all black and pale. He said he didn't know you, but he sounded real onry so I think he was lying. Do you know him?"

Link pulled the flag string through a hoop in the canopy post. "Yep."

Kane waited for Link to elaborate. Instead, he knotted the flag strings and moved along the line to the next post. Kane followed.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Is he your brother or something?"

"Guess you could say that."

"What's his name?"

"Uh," Link tied another knot to hold the flags in place. "Shadow."

Kane wrinkled his nose. "Shadow? What kind of name is that?"

"Just don't bother with him, kay? He's not exactly safe."

"Yeah, I could tell he had issues."

"He has more than issues. Seriously, Kane, stay away from him, got it?"

"Okay, okay, jeeze. It's not like I wanted to talk to him anyways."

As Link finished the rest of the line of flags, Kane watched blankly. A few children ran past him throwing snowballs and he side stepped to dodge one.

"Sooo..." he started, "have you figured out what to do about Lady Frost?"

"Is that what you guys call her?"

"More or less."

"I was going to do some investigating, yes, but then you're mother sort of speared me for this flag job."

"Heh, yeah, hard to say no to the dragon look, isn't it?"

Which reminded him; his shadow had seen this girl, hadn't he? He should have asked where she had appeared, maybe he could get a lead on finding her. But even then, what would that accomplish? Kane could tell him all he wanted to know, couldn't he? And once he found the girl, then what? Ask her politely to lift the curse? Draw her near to fire once more?

"Hey, Kane, where did you guys meet this girl?"  
"It was different every time, so I can't really say."

"Dang it."

$$#%&$# $

The sound of cheers and drums woke him up, though how he had stayed asleep through his pounding headache, he didn't know. The food the big-mouth man had given him had been a joke, so he could add an empty stomach on top of it.

Slugging his way out of bed like a chu-chu, he made his way down the narrow stairway to the church below to ask the friar for more food. The churchman, for some stupid reason, looked offended, so of course Dark Link knew he'd say no. The only reason he didn't go ahead and ransack the church then and there was because he was too tired, not to mention he caught the whiff of a much easier find out the door, and from the smell of it, much tastier than stale bread and cheese as well.

Thus, he found himself back outside walking and surrounded by over excited people. When some playing children squealed rather loudly, he winced as it made his migraine throb. The stupid drums playing out of rhythm didn't help either. Food first, he told himself. He could kill them later when he didn't feel so crappy. He could stab the stupid drummers too.

His nose led him to a roasted pig being sliced over a fire. He was so relieved upon finding it, he didn't even take the time to notice Link glaring at him a ways away as he got into line. All he could think about was how nice it would be to have pork sliding down his throat. Hot pork.

The drummers stopped and a barrel chested man got up on a small floor of old planks set up under the canopy that had been set up across the square. He started talking about how grateful they were or other for Link the savior and super hero of the land, blah blah blah. He was busy watching the pig juices land into the fire and thinking 'what a waste.' He felt like a wolf dragging away its prey to a secluded corner when he finally left the pig with his loaded plate. There was a bonfire not too far away and he was able to find a warm seat by himself.

"So, you're Shadow."

His ham steak dripped down his chin as he looked up. The gangly boy from before was standing there, watching him. He champed down and the meat smacked back onto the plate.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. That is your name, isn't it? Shadow?"

Shadow? How cliché, he thought. When he thought of a better name he'd correct the boy, but until then he just chewed.

"So, um...uh, this is so awkward, but my sister's friend dared me to come over and talk to you. Really twisted my arm, she did-it's really stupid, but she wanted to ask if...you know what? Nevermind. I think she just thinks you're cute or sumpthan, but don't tell her I said that. "

"Bug off."

"Oh, right, sorry. I'll just...yeah."

"Kane." said a third voice.

Dark Link groaned and looked up to see his original giving one of his hard looks to the guy, who gulped.

"I was just leaving, no stress!" he protested.

Dark Link watched as his original shooed the teenager away and gave his shadow a glare. In response, he just continued to eat. Seconds of silence passed where he just chewed and Link looked on. He was just about to ask whether Link had a fetish for watching other people slop torn meat into their mouths when he finally spoke.

"Where did you see that girl in the snow?"

He swallowed. "Huh? The Snow Maiden?"

"Yeah."

"How do you know about that?"

Link sighed. "Last night when you wandered in you kept muttering about her in your brainfreeze delirium, now do you remember where you saw her?"

"Not sure. Kinda hard to tell where you are when you're in a blizzard, ya know?" Dark Link smirked. "I know! How about you wander into the next big blizzard that comes around. Probably find her then. While you're at it, go naked." he paused. "Wait a minute...why do you want a snow girl?"

"I think she's the reason winter won't leave this place."

"Huh." And Dark Link turned back to his pork. Link waited, but his shadow didn't bother to say anything more on that. He dropped his head back in exasperation.

"And of course, you don't care."

"Nope." he said through a full mouth.

He knew Link was withholding himself from punching him, which pleased him, but eventually he left without another word and he was left to finish his steak. He managed to get another piece when some music started playing and half the town got distracted with dancing. Then he got dinner and a show watching those born with two left feet attempt to jiggle in place. Of course, he hated music, but he found his foot tapping to the rhythm anyways. Man, roasted pig was good. For a while he played with the idea of becoming a pig farmer. That's something the original wouldn't do, right? And then he could have as much ham, pork chops, and bacon as he wanted. Oh wow, bacon sounded good right now.

Meanwhile, the sky grew darker and the fires grew brighter. He wandered through his thoughts, the celebration and noise before him like one long blur. For him it was like he watched a different world. What were these creatures that danced and sung despite the fact they all had obviously thin arms and thin faces creased with stress lines? Of course he didn't need to be told why Link was here. He wasn't stupid. The only thing he wondered now is why they sacrificed one of their precious livestock for this? And why hadn't anyone stopped him from eating seconds, let alone eating at all? It wasn't like he was one of them. He wasn't even a person at all.

A song begun to play which Dark Link couldn't help but like. The man at the drums and the woman at the fiddle must've been the best in the town, and even he could appreciate them. On spying the original in the group playing his ocarina, however, he shook himself of any enjoyment and scowled. He was not going to be like him. He didn't care whether he was his shadow or not.

But the clear night air twinkled with stars and the snow gleamed beneath moonlight. Night. Maybe that could be his name. Nah, that was stupid. Why did he keep choosing names that weren't even names for people? Maybe because he didn't really feel like a people person.

A glimmer of white broke the flat landscape. He blinked hard, trying to differentiate the snow and whatever was dancing across the...it was dancing.

It was her.

Barely noticing that he had caught his breath, he left his place and wandered closer to the edge of the tiny town where she leapt and spun. Her white mane wrapped about her like a blanket as she turned and ran behind her like a banner when she wasn't. The cold rushed in the moment he left the warm orb around the town's fire, but they way he thought he could see her eyes as nothing but spots of shine above her smile distracted him. There was something 'un-people-ish' about her, something inhuman.

And then the song ended and she fell still, laughing in the clean air. Unlike him, her breath didn't condense in the cold. He thought of the never ending winter, the slender townsfolk, and found himself cautiously walking out from where he was hidden in the shadows. The moment the moonlight broke across him, her head whipped around and she froze, eyes wide. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his cloak.

"Hey."

He never felt so stupid hearing his own voice than when she kept looking at him like that. Behind him the village murmurings sounded like a rush of water with the occasional burst of laughter.

"What?" he asked, looking down at himself. "Do I have food down my front or something? Someone throw manure at me when I wasn't looking?"

She started to step away, her hands folded to her chest. A wind whistled to the north. He too fell still. She looked oddly...frightened. Then again, he was use to the reaction to him on occasion. He was not kind, nor did he look kind.

"It's okay," he said quietly, "you can run if you want."

She paused, looking somewhat surprised and confused.

"Why would you say something like that?"

At first, he barely heard her, for her soft voice blended in with the oncoming breeze. Drafts picked up loose snow on the ground and swept it across the cottony ends of her skirt.

"Well, you look scared, which I can understand." he gave her a weak smirk. "I can have that affect on people. I'm not exactly suppose to be a good guy."

"You think people are scared of you?" her voice was stronger now.

"I know they are-if they know me, that is. Otherwise, they soon will be."

"But...you don't look scary."

"I don't?"

"No. You look lonely."

He chuckled at this. "Lonely? How quaint."

She dropped her folded hands to her waist and cocked her head. "What's your name?"

"Funny you should ask. I don't really have a name."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "How can you not have a name?"

To this he shrugged. "I guess you could say someone already has it."

"Is that why you came here, then? To get your name?"

"I don't really know why I'm here."

"Did whoever sent you here not tell you?"

"No one sent me here. I just sort of...came."

"Me too." she gave him a weak, pearly smile. "I was lonely. Maybe that's why you came here too."

"I've never thought of myself as lonely."

"Maybe you don't remember what it's like to not be lonely. You have that look."

"Huh, I'm looking like a lot of things to you, aren't I?"

Her eyes softened. "I just watch people a lot. It's all I really can do."

"Why? I can't see why anyone would be repulsed by you." he felt it was okay to approach and cautiously took a step forward, trying to look casual as possible. The moment he saw her tense up again he stopped.

Music played back up from behind him, this time at a more mellow pace.

"Don't come near me." she said, tone brittle as ice.

He raised his hands apologetically. "Hey, I can respect space bubble issues. Like I said, you can run if you want. I don't feel like leaving, however."

She rolled in her lip nervously, "Why?"

"I think we might have a lot in common." he bowed his head to look up at her through his bangs, "and I'm sort of curious as to why you have deemed this village of idiots fit for never-ending winter."

Her expression blanched. "I...I don't..."

And just like that, the wind building on the mountains came down in one loud gust of snow and ice and she vanished. Dark Link watched the small whirlpool of snow wind down till the plane of snow was left empty and glimmering as before. He frowned, then sneezed. This time it felt like his head exploded.

"Dammit."


	4. Knights, Skeletons, and Snot

**Yo homeskillets! The baby son is doing good. He's hit two months old. It's so much easier to write when you're not prego, let me tell you that. And don't buy apples from Wal-mart, they almost always suck. You know when they get all kinda like hard applesauce and they're not crispy and tangy? I hate it when that happens.**

**Please be sure to review. I'd love to hear what you're thinking. ^.^**

**Now please...enjoy. **

Chapter 4: Knights, Skeletons, and Snot

In a dusty stable off the side of a humble stone cottage, a father and son were preparing for war.

"Dad, this stuff is like skin constipation, I can't believe I can still move!"

"Stop being such a pansy, I'm not going to let you weasel out of this-it's a great honor! And with your skills-"

"But I don't want to fight!"

The Hyrulian Knight gave a huff of frustration. The fifteen year old boy he was trying to squeeze into chain mail was red faced and glowering at him through a mess of dark brown hair.

"Now son, we both know you're the best around when it comes to swordsmanship and Hyrule needs every man she can get."

"Screw Hyrule, this is stupid, I'm going to suffocate!"

The man scowled and wacked his son across the head. "Shut it. I don't have time for your attitude."

After a few more minutes of yelling and cursing on both ends, the knight finally got his sinewy son draped and buckled in the chainmail with a sword at his side. Both were out of breath and angry in time for the knight's wife and daughter to walk in. The sister, a few years older than the boy, giggled.

"Nice hair."

"Shuddup, Samantha." said the youth.

His mother looked from him to his father and back again, her lip swollen with gnawing. Lines creased her sad, hazel eyes.

"Roan, are you sure he's old enough for this?"

"Hush, I already told you, he'll be fine. The boy is better than me."

"But that doesn't mean he can..." she bit her lip once more.

"He'll be fine," repeated Sir Roan, but his frown betrayed otherwise.

Samantha had the tact to not say anything on noticing this, but a small head poked through the doorway with a goopy smile and mud-stained skirts.

"Don't die, Dane."

The boy's red face paled dramatically. "Shuddup, Corral!"

"Don't talk to your younger sister like that." snapped his father.

"So I can talk to Samantha like that?"

"You don't talk to any lady like that!"

"Why? 'Cause that's how knights do it?"

The knight threw his hands in the air. "That's it!" he gestured wildly to his wife. "You handle him! He's your son, I am through with his arrogance and ingratitude-"

"You're the one who won't listen to me!" Dane shouted. "I-don't-want-to-be-a-_knight_!"

"Fine! Then at least go outside and help the others protect our village!"

"No!"

His father swelled, if possible, even more and his mother and sisters retreated back down the doorway a bit.

The knight jabbed a finger at his son. "Are you being a coward?"

Dane flinched. That stung. That stung a lot.

His mother raised a tentative hand. "Roan, please-"

But Dane broke in with a quivering voice, "I've already told you, Dad. We can't beat Ganondorf. He wiped out the entire active Hyrulian army that was stationed at the castle, not to mention he's a sorcerer. Do you know how to kill a sorcerer?"

"Like any other man-sword plus flesh."

Dane rolled his eyes. "Wow, that gives me so much confidence."

"Just get your butt out there before I cut it off and send it out there for you."

"No! Instead of marching off to our deaths we should be trying to convince everyone to leave! Let's go live in Kakariko or something."

His father swelled. "This is our _home_!"

"And these are our lives! Which do you honestly think is more important?"

"Some things are worth dying for-"

"And sacrificing women and children for? A bunch of houses and dirt?"

But Sir Roan just shook his head in dismay. "You don't understand."

His mother's lip quivered as she stepped past the two girls, who were watching on with wide eyes. "Roan, he may have a point."

"We're going to die?" asked little Corral.

"Someone's gonna," muttered Samantha.

Sir Roan looked hard at his wife, who had her hands folded up tightly against her breast. He reached out to wrap his large hands around hers.

"Love-"

An explosion came from outside and ended in screams. The horses in the stalls near the back of the room let out whinnies of fright. His father whirled around.

"This discussion's over, he's here." he pushed his wife and daughter's behind him. "Go to the back of the stable, quickly. Dane, get over here."

Dane looked at his mother and sisters, eyes wide. "Wait, Dad-"

"Please, son, don't argue, just come on!"

"But-!"

But his dad had already ran out of the stable, drawing his sword. He drew his own sword and quickly turned to his mother and sisters.

"You guys shouldn't stay in here, it could easily catch fire or trap you in should anyone come. Maybe you should go into the woods, mom, go far away from here. Take the horses."

His sisters were pale and silent, mirror mini-me's of his mother, who reached to touch Dane's face.

"I agree," she said softly, "I know you don't think this is wise, but it's too late to do anything else now. Keep your father safe."

He chuckled dryly. "What about me?"

"You were always such a smart kid. I believe in you."

"Don't die, zit-licker."

He smiled down at Corral, who looked like she was about to cry, but trying to look brave anyways.

"I'm not a zit-licker, pant-sniffer."

He took one last look of his family before running out after his father.

Outside it had turned from a normal day to a nightmare in the short time he wasn't looking. Fires, men at one another with blades, screams of pain, blood, mud though it hadn't rained, madness-he listened for the sound of galloping to signal that his mother and sisters were out of sight before sprinting out into the fray to look for his father. He tried not to notice what was going around him. It made something tender inside him go numb, too numb.

A soldier came up on his side, wicked blade raised, but when he turned to parry the blow it was to see a skull had replaced any living head. The whole soldier was made of bones. Glowing yellow eyes looked down at him.

"What's the matter, boy?" cackled the skeleton. "Never seen bones before?"

He could see his death then and there, but as the blade came down he suddenly heard his father shout. Snapping into motion, he whipped out his sword, the most natural feeling in the world, and decapitated the soldier. He didn't stop there, but smashed in its femurs and scattered its vertebrae. He could hear it's angry clatter following him as he ran.

"Dad!" he shouted. "Dad!"

But he couldn't find him-he couldn't find him!

Around him Ganon's undead soldiers slew his neighbors one by one. Whenever a man would fell one of the skeletons they'd just rise back again in a tinkling of armor and bones. Only a few figured they hand to break the bones as Dane had, not just scatter them.

He spotted a couple of girls huddled in the shadow of a doorway, looking on with horror.

"Dad!"

Another skeleton came upon him. He ducked and swung his sword into its femurs again. It fell.

And on its other side he finally found his father, kneeling amidst the battle, a look of stunned surprise on his face.

"Dad, you idiot, what are you doing!?"

He beat back another monster, barely shattering its legs and arms in time to keep his head. He grabbed his dad's arm.

"Get up, Dad! What is wrong with-" he choked. Blood was pouring down his father's chest. His eyes looked distant.

"Dane?" Blood trickled out the corner of his mouth.

For some reason, seeing his father like this made him angry.

"You got hit already?" he cried. "What about all that bragging you did about how you were going to stab Ganon, Dad? You didn't even last long enough for me to get here-what the hell! I was only a few minutes behind you! Why couldn't you-what is wrong-"

His father toppled over. Dane was still holding onto his arm. His anger was replaced with an overwhelming black terror he had never known before. It was growing, swallowing his lungs, swallowing his heart-

"Dad! Wait, you're stronger than this! Get up!"

His blue eyes were so black. Black, black, black...

"Listen to me for once!"

He shook his father's arm. He fell to his knees and shook him. He was unaware of what he was screaming, or that he was even screaming. All he saw were those uncanny eyes.

And then more soldiers were upon him. Dozens upon dozens. They had finished with his village and had found him in the midst of them. Swinging, laughing jaws filled the air with clatter, which sounded oddly like peaceful branches in the wind.

Bloodlust clouded his vision. He hated them. He had never hated anything so truly in his life. It burned him, and he threw himself forward with teeth bared and his soul in his blade.

"You bastards!"

The sound of bones crunching never sounded so satisfying. He was overwhelmed with numbers, but he couldn't feel the nicks and bites of the monster's blades. All he could focus on was swinging as hard as he could and swallowing great gulps of blood-tasting air.

And then, quite suddenly, it all fell still. The soldiers backed off, skulls bowed, and Dane found himself on his knees. He didn't know how he got there. He tried to get up, but his leg wouldn't listen. His calf was bloody and torn.

A dark boot fell into his vision. He looked up to see the strangest man he had ever seen, with dark skin and bright orange hair. The man was so tall it was like looking up a tower to see his face, which had a chilling grin showing bright white teeth. He would have seemed oddly beautiful if it wasn't for the obvious malice that brightened his eyes. He looked around at the broken bones scattered around Dane.

"You're very good, kid." his exotic accent made Dane stare.

He said nothing. The great man raised an orange eyebrow.

"And you've still got fight in you, despite those wounds. You don't even know they're there, do you?"

"Ganondorf."

Ganon's grin widened. "I like you. I think I could use your skill. You remind me remarkably of someone I know. He tried to be a hero too."

"I'll never serve you." Dane growled. "I'm going to kill you!"

"Of course." Ganon raised his hands, "But in a moment you won't be you anymore, so I guess that might change."

Dane only had a moment to feel scared before darkness surrounded him. It sunk inside him, swallowed up his very thoughts and feelings. The pain of his wounds vanished and he felt his limbs lengthened. He grew strong again. Soon he could stand easily, it was as though he had never been winded or hurt. He looked back up into the face of Ganon. In the man's eyes he could see his face reflected back at him-a face he didn't recognize.

"Who are you?"

Ganon folded his arms, satisfaction lining his posture. "I am Ganon, and I want you to go to a place called the Water Temple."

But he hadn't been asking who Ganon was.

$#%^*%$%#(Not cussing)

Dark Link woke with the vague sense that he had just had a very, very bad nightmare. He couldn't remember anything through his splitting headache though. He groaned, coughed, and groaned again as it made his world throb.

"Hell..."

His windpipe felt like it was full of cotton. It made it hard to breathe, and his throat felt like sandpaper had been stuffed down it. He sneezed and snot went all over the place. He used the blanket to wipe at it, cursing every profanity he knew. He couldn't remember ever being sick before, though he somehow remembered the misery it was.

This was all Link's fault. Although he knew Link hadn't made him go wandering through a winter wasteland, everything had to be his fault. Link was the reason he even existed. Hard to be a shadow to no one.

He sneezed. Snot, pain, filth-ugh.

"Hey,"

He looked up to see the last person he wanted to see standing in the doorway.

"Go away." he moaned, laying back down and throwing the now somewhat snotty blanket over his head.

"You don't look so good." said Link.

"All the more reason for you to _go away._"

"I'll be glad to once you tell me what the Snow Maiden said to you. And before you ask, yes, I saw you. And I saw her. I don't think anyone else did, though."

"She didn't say anything,"

"Right. Wow, I didn't know you could get sick."

"Go away."

"Not until you tell me exactly what she said."

Dark Link moaned in earnest and ran his arms over his face. He didn't have the strength to kill Link now. He was too tired. He would later.

"Fine," he said, "she said she came here because she was lonely and left. That's it, now let me sleep you bastard."

Whatever Link said after that he didn't care to remember, but fell asleep so fast he didn't catch the door closing. He dreamed feverish dreams of skeletons and dying men and a little girl with fingers still covered in jelly. When he woke up again there was a candle by his bedside and a bowl of something steaming next to it. The snap of the door had woke him up and he could hear the sound of boots going down the stairs. Someone had thrown a fresh blanket over him as well that smelt suspiciously of horsehair.

Choosing not to think about it, he swallowed the soup, curled back under the blankets, and fell back asleep.


	5. Rope, Cocoa, and Potions

**Nananananananana-BATMAN!**

**Review, homies, or I will cry and make you feel bad. Kai is watching you too. O.O With his big, two month old blue eyes. **

Chapter 5: Rope, Cocoa, and Potions

Link made it back from the church in a flurry of snow. He shut the winter out behind him, knocked the snow from his boots, and hung up his cloak by the door. Kane along with two young women sat by the fire as Carrol knitted a scarf.

"Is there a blizzard every night?" he asked.

"Oh, depends," said Kane's sister, who sat beside Kane. She had a round face smothered with freckles and her mother's warm brown eyes.

"Depends on what?"

"The day. Sometimes we get a whole week without a single snow shower."

"It's amazing that our village hasn't been completely snowed under." said Kane, a piece of wood and knife in his hand. Wood shavings powdered his slippers.

Link slipped out of his boots and into his own slippers lent to him from Carrol, who hated snow being tracked into her house. As he blew onto his hands, he collapsed on the rug in front of the fire. The storm moaned around the cabin, which held firm. It gave Link the cozy sense of security.

A shy, sweet girl that also sat on the rug smiled as he joined her through her waist long, dark brown hair. No one knew what her real name was, but the Mayor and his wife had taken her as a child and she was more or less adopted into the family. Kane said he considered her as good as his real sister, though it was only his sister, Jewels, that seemed to be able to get her to talk.

"Hey, Nani."

She brushed her hair behind her ears and her smile widened. She was quite pretty, with bright eyes and a smile that promised something sweet he couldn't place. He found himself growing warm instantly and returned her smile.

"How did it go with Shadow?" asked Carrol. "Is he doing all right?"

"Well, he's not coughing much, so I think he just got a bad cold. Your soup should do wonders, though."

She nodded. "Thank you for the sentiment. I hope that boy gets better, might help with that grouchy look he carries around."

"Oh, he always has that." said Link.

Kane set aside his carving and blew off his hands. "Can I talk to you, Link?"

"Sure."

"In private?"

Carrol eyed her son suspiciously. "Don't you leave without cleaning up that wood fluff."

"I promise I'll clean it when I'm done, okay? I just want to talk to him for a moment."

"Bout what?" asked Jewels, eyes sparkling.

Kane scowled. "Man stuff."

"Ooo! Does Linky have a crush?"

"Don't call him Linky, you're nineteen, not two, and what kind of grown man gets a crush?"

She rolled her eyes. "Little brother, you know nothing."

Ignoring her, Kane led Link to the back of the house. On reaching the cellar he opened the door and drew him in. He checked the landing before closing it behind them, leaving a crack open for light.

"Now would be a good time," he said.

"Now? In this weather?"

"Best time, brother. It's when she feels the most secure, I think, cause who'd go looking for her in a blizzard? She is the reason it's there anyways."

Link frowned. "Do you have a way I can get back? It's easy to get lost out there, and you could have told me before I took off my boots."

"Sorry. And I have a rope out back you can tie to your waist. I'll tie the other end to one of porch posts while you're getting ready."

"Thanks."

"No prob." Kane opened the door and the dim light from the living room fell on his wan expression. "You are fixing my mistake, after all."

Back outside, Link almost turned and went back inside to try this another day, but this was the only lead he had. Cold like knives whipped past his the part of his face exposed by the scarf Carrol had made for him. Kane came up to him with the rope, his figure almost entirely hidden by coats. He gestured for Link to turn and he tied the rope about his middle.

"That should be good." he yelled above the wind. "Do you have your flute thing?"

Link lifted his ocarina. How he was going to be heard above this chaos, he didn't know.

With a nod, Kane went back into the cabin and Link stomped out in a pair of borrowed snow shoes. Within seconds the cabin vanished behind him. The blizzard tore at him, stinging his eyes and tugging at his cloak. For a short minute he imagined what it would be like to get lost in a storm like this and shuddered.

When the rope ran out and he couldn't go any farther, he took out his ocarina and eased it past his muffle to his dry lips. The mouthpiece felt like ice. The feel made him think of the last place he had been to like this, where the very walls had been made of ice. Though beautiful, the chill took years to completely forget about.

With blue, crystalline ice in his mind, he played the Serenade of Water. He squinted through the dark white.

A small cyclone formed about him. Whirling snow built walls of white, and finally he could breathe. The wind eased down on his clothes. He kept playing.

The snow parted like a curtain as a fair young woman, barely discernible from all the white, peered through, looking hopeful. Her face fell on seeing him and she moved to step away. Link dropped the ocarina.

"Wait!"

She kept backing away. Soon all he could see were her eyes peering out from the snow.

"I won't hurt you! I'm new here, I just wanted to talk to you!"

The eyes hesitated. The black of her pupils was the only other color to be seen. He licked his lips, which instantly went frosty.

"This snow-this is you're doing, isn't it?"

The eyes blinked.

"Yes." she whispered, and Link almost mistook it for the whistling wind in his ears.

"Why do you keep it here, then? Over this village?"

She closed her eyes, successfully making her disappear.

"Go away."

"What? But I only want-"

"Go AWAY!"

The cyclone collapsed about him and sucked out his breath. He choked.

"Wait-"

"This village deserves to freeze!" roared the blizzard. "Cruel, cruel, cruel-you defend them?!"

"Wait, are you talking about those boys who hurt you? I know about them! I just want to help!"

"Liar." she hissed. "You seek their welfare only. There's nothing you can do."

The blizzard calmed just enough for him to breathe. The storm went back to its natural rage. On the edge of it he could hear her voice fading away.

"There's nothing anyone can do."

Then, there was only snow and wind.

He played his ocarina more in attempts to draw her out once more, but all that answered back was snow.

He returned to the cabin unable to talk through his chattering teeth. Carrol and Jewels had already gone to bed after the mayor, but Kane and Nani waited for him by the fire. As he struggled to peel off various snow crusted clothing and boots, Nani trotted into the kitchen and came back holding a large mug of something steaming. She waited patiently for him to free himself before handing it over.

"Aw, Din. Thank you." he breathed, barely able to even make himself out through his chattering teeth. She bowed her head and gave him one of her promising smiles.

"Well?" asked Kane. He shifted from foot to foot and was pulling on his fingers again.

"No go." he said.

Kane sighed and dropped his hands. "I'm sorry, man."

Nani looked between the both of them, but didn't look confused. It was as though she already knew. But, as always, she said nothing and returned to her spot next to the fire, where she proceeded to dig out a book to read.

Link blew on the mug and followed her. Kane ran his sweaty fingers through his hair.

"You did see, uh, her, right?" he looked nervously at Nani, but she acted as though not paying attention, her long hair hung over one shoulder.

"Yeah," he took a sip. Hot cocoa. He made a noise of pleasure. "This is marvelous. The cold was almost worth it for this."

Nani's ears moved ever so slightly with her hidden smile.

"Nani makes the best hot cocoa in the world. I've watched her make it, but every time I try to make it myself it tastes like mud compared to hers." Kane shook his head fondly. "I don't know how she does it. Is there any for me?"

Nani pointed towards the kitchen. "Counter." she said softly. Kane made something close to a yip and went down the hall, leaving Link and her alone by the fire. In silence he sipped his cocoa and she read her book. There was something about her, Link realized, that made silence comfortable. He felt no need to break it. He could sit for hours like this, sipping cocoa, watching the fire, watching how the light played on the sheen of her dark hair.

"So," Kane returned, mug in hand. Link noted it wasn't nearly as large as his own. "Got any plan B?"

"You're the one with experience in this."

"And thus I made plan A and it failed," he raised his mug to him, "and now it's your turn, oh great hero sent by the Royal Family." he brought the cup to his lips, blew, and sipped.

Link snorted, but said nothing to that. After blowing a few times, Kane practically inhaled his cocoa. He stopped for only a second to rub his head and mutter 'sugar rush.'

"I'm heading to bed folks."

"Night." said Link.

After he left, he spotted some wood shavings on the floor and smiled.

Link then lost track of time as the warmth of the fire eased away his shivering and the cocoa slowly disappeared. Only the crackling of the fire and the occasional turning of a page broke the gentle quiet. He could feel his eyelids drooping. What would he do next? He found himself thinking. The Snow Maiden wouldn't talk to him now. What had her hopeful look been for? What had she been hoping he'd be? And how would he be able to figure out how to break this curse if he couldn't even draw her out of her blizzard? It wasn't like he could just wander out there and look for her.

An image of Dark Link, or Shadow as he'd come to call him, came to his mind. He had been talking to her-or talking to somebody out there in the snow. All Link had been able to make out was some figure-shaped whiteness in the moonlight. Why had she come to talk to him? Why had she come at all if there hadn't been a blizzard? If there was a chance she came out at other times...

He swallowed the last of his cocoa.

"I'm going to bed too. Thanks again for the cocoa."

She just nodded, not even looking up from her book. He peered past her hands at the page.

"What book is that?"

She lifted the cover to him. In faded embossed letters, _Luminescence_ shone out.

"What's it about?"

"The moon." she said, soft as a mouse. "She fell in love."

"What happened to her?"

She turned the page. "Dunno."

"Let me know?"

She nodded and he left for the ladder upstairs that went up into the loft. In his shallow room, someone had already lit the brazier and the coals left enough dark for him to still see the snow whirling outside his tiny window. He watched the snowflakes for a while before going to his bed and curling up beneath the blankets.

#%$^%(*^%$#%&

Ganon waited impatiently as his mothers, Koume and Kotake, took their sweet time stirring a huge cauldron, passing the ladle to the each other across the bubbling red mixture. Now and then it would turn blue as well and a distinct chill would come over the hot room.

"Well?" he demanded. "Why didn't it work?"

Koume rolled her bulging eyes to him. "Sister, the boy's forgotten."

Kotake passed the ladle. "I always told you his memory was shoty at best, but you always insisted he was intelligent."

"But he is! Memory has nothing to do with it."

"Will you two stop talking like I'm not here and just answer my damn question?"

The sisters sighed in unison. The changing light of the cauldron and fire highlighted the lines in their faces, which they spotted in one another at the same time.

"We won't be here forever to answer your questions, you know." said Koume.

"Maybe it's time you used that brain and figured this out for yourself." said Kotake.

"I don't have the time for that right now." he growled. "That phantom was a mess, and all it could do was copy me. I don't want a copy, I want a servant that can think for themselves-ones that don't have to be told how to do every damn thing!"

"What about your Stalfoes?"

"Lizardfoes?"

"Wolfoes?"

Ganon pressed his thick fingers against his forehead. "Those are monsters. Idiotic, single minded monsters that only think of attacking, killing, and in the animals case, mating. Their useless for anything other than mass destruction-I need delicacy! Surely you can see that?"

Koume paused only for a moment to sneeze before passing the ladle. Kotake glared.

"You're going to ruin it!" she snapped.

"Snot ain't going to do a thing to it." Koume said.

"Aren't you two listen to me!?"

"Boy, you talk too much. You don't have to explain your reasoning to us, saying they won't do is enough." said Kotake. "And I don't want snot in my potion nonetheless."

Koume huffed. "Well, excuse me for not blowing my brains out."

"I'm not a boy!" broke in Ganon. "And will you just tell me what I did wrong already? The spell should have worked, I did everything right!"

"Then why are you asking us what you did wrong?" asked Koume.

When Ganon just glared, the twin witches cackled to one another. The potion turned to a swirling purple.

"Let's stop messing with him," Kotake told her sister as she bent her long nose over the cauldron and sniffed, "our potion is about done anyways."

Koume nodded and handed off the ladle to her sister before turning to Ganon. "No magic can create true life. True life has the characteristics you seek in a minion. If you want this minion, you need to find a life force that already exists as a template for your spell."

"When you did your spell, it sought out life, and since you were the only one there it copied your characteristics," Kotake ladled up a spoonful and sniffed it more thoroughly. "Damn it, Koume, I can smell you in this. Disgusting."

"You'll live." said Koume.

"How am I suppose to harvest life?" asked Ganon. "Must I kill someone and use their blood?"

"Gods, your thinking is so debased. Of course not. You just go find something living-get a damn squirrel if you want, and just redesign the life to your needs."

"Just keep in mind," said Kotake, "the more rich the life, the more powerful the end result."

"Life. Youth."

"Vivaciousness. Energy."

"Remember those days sisters?"

"Yes. You were a quite the whore."

"Excuse me? I think you're remembering yourself, we do look an awful lot alike."

"Idiot, of course I can tell myself from you. I'm the one thinking."

"You can't delude yourself forever."

As the sisters continued to bicker, Ganon left without so much of a goodbye. He had gotten what he came for. He wasn't going to stay there a second longer listening to this idiocy. Sometimes he couldn't believe these women actually raised him.


	6. Nameless, Goht, and Crushed

**So that no one calls me unfair, you're going to cry. There, I warned you. Wow, that makes me sound arrogant. **

**Please review. ^.^ Man, I'm really craving something meaty right now. All this writing about famine and hungry people, pff, it does it to you. Oh, and please forget my little stupid mistakes here and there, these chapters are rought drafts. The reason being is so that I can update once a week for you little peeps, for if I tried to edit my English major soul would never let you see my chapters. I'd just edit on into eternity. We all must make sacrifices.**

**Now, where is that slab of cow in my freezer...**

Chapter 6: Nameless, Goht, and Crushed

Dark Link woke up when a cold draft brushed over his face. He shivered and opened his sticky eyes. The candle had gone out and weak, grey light lit the room. Someone was there. Someone white and fair. Even as he blinked to clear his vision, he could see the water running down her snowy clothes. Her thick, pale hair brushed past her face as she leaned down to him.

"I made you sick," her pink lips quivered. "I'm sorry."

"My fault." he croaked. He coughed and tried to clear his throat. "I like the cold too much for my own good."

She almost smiled. "I like it too."

"How'd you get in here?"

"The priest's still asleep. And even if he did see me, he wouldn't hurt me. He doesn't know who I am."

"No offense, sweetheart, but it's pretty obvious," he took out a hand into the cold room to gesture at her clothes. "You're melting."

She glanced down and blushed a faint pink.

"Yeah, they, um...tend to do that."

"Why do you wear that snow cloth stuff anyways?" it almost hurt too much to talk, and his head still throbbed.

"It's pretty." she said, picking up a strand of her dress. "And, well...it's not like anyone has ever given me clothes."

"Ah. That'd do it."

"But I want to tell you something."

"Yes?"

She leaned in closer, her smile turning wry. "I don't have a name either."

He stared. Slowly, so as to not aggravate his various aches, he sat up and swathed himself in blankets. He coughed. She winced.

"I'm sorry."

"No, really, it's fine." he said. "But really? Do you remember your family?"

She shook her head. "I don't think I ever had a family. You?"

"Nope. I was..." he looked down. "You don't want to know."

"Oh," she cocked her head to the side. Her bodice had melted quite low by now and he was having a difficult time keeping his eyes down at the floor. Her pale white fingers appeared in his vision as she adjusted her skirts.

"Will you," she shifted uneasily, "help me?"

"With what?" he sneezed into his blankets. More snot. And it had to be in front of her. "Dammit." So much for being covert.

She either didn't notice or was too polite to show she did. "With...me. I don't have a name. For years I've been alone, I'm not sure who or what I am. I want to be." her voice shook. "All I remember is this little boy-thing wearing a horrible, horrible mask all covered in horns." she shuddered.

For the first time, he felt his heart move. He actually _wanted_ to help her. But he knew better.

"No. I'm sorry."

Her face fell and she seemed to draw into herself. Her tearful eyes did awful things to his stomach.

"A-am I-"

"It has nothing to do with you," he said quickly, sniffing, "it's me. I told you, I'm not exactly a good guy. You don't want help from me." he didn't even know if he, created from evil, would even know where to begin on being a hero. "But I know someone who can help you. Trust me, he's a good guy through and through. He does this helping stuff for a living, unlike me..."

She grimaced. "Are you sure? You're the only one I've met so far who's..." she trailed off.

"What?"

"Like...me."

"Aw, nah, you're not like me." he rubbed his face harshly against the saddle blanket. It hurt. "I'm pathetic, dark, nobody, you know? Like, really, nobody. Your somebody. To be honest, I was born of dark magic to be the shadow of someone else. My only purpose is to make his life difficult, I don't even have a unique identity. I can't see how you could be a shadow."

"No, you don't know what I've done, and nobody..." she kneeled down to his level, and now it was really hard to avert his eyes. "Could I...could I..."

"Could you what?"

"...be around you?"

He felt a warmth he'd never felt before flood his being and rush into his face. Something within him thawed, and for a moment he felt real. For the first time he thought he could sense there was something more to him, something else hidden inside his mind. She wanted to be around him. She wanted to know him. Her, this gorgeous, mysterious, magical woman.

A coughing fit came over him then. She flinched.

"Heavens, I keep forgetting how sick you are, I shouldn't be here." she stood, her arms wrapped about her chest. "I'm sorry for how cold I am-I mean, for who I am."

"No, don't. But really, you can trust this guy. I know he can help you."

Her big blue eyes quivered on him. Then, she nodded.

"All right."

"Now, get out of here before you're ice kingdom starts to miss you."

She gave him a shy grin, curtsied (must not look at her barely covered chest), and stepped lightly out the door and down to the rest of the church, leaving a trail of water behind her. The ice on the windowpanes started to glimmer like crystals in the rising sun. It was strange to have the sun rising so early, as though it were almost summer, and yet snow half buried the village outside.

! #%#$^$ #

Her little bare feet trudged through the snow, yet the cold didn't bother her. It felt cool and kind. Flurries wrapped about her, playing with white hair and drawing circles in the sky. She couldn't remember how she got here. She couldn't remember who she was. All she knew was this soft snow, so very white and pretty, and on the edge of her mind she longed for someone she no longer knew.

She wanted the snow to stay. And so it did.

In the past she would walk through a village and its occupants, who had bodies like stones and large dark eyes. They shivered violently and cursed the winter and she didn't know why. Now and then one would look at her in a weird way, as though they really, truly saw her-as though they knew her, but then for some reason she'd remember their hate and got scared. The snow was all she knew. She was snow. And they hated snow.

So she avoided it now. Her anxiety called up the flurries to hide her. It felt like be wrapped in cool cotton. Why did they hate this?

She kept walking, aching, confused, and impossibly unique. In this world of rock people, what place had she?

When she came upon the narrow path with sheer drops on either side, she didn't think, just kept walking. If she fell, the snow and wind would catch her. They always did. The strange path led her up and up until she came to a cavern in the hill. Inside, her winter storm valiantly tried to follow her, but only the crisp remains of cold and ice could come. She watched as her skin crusted with it, like diamonds. The cavern was lit by strange blue fires, and there was ice all around. As doors opened before her pale fingers and pathways formed before her, she found herself liking this place. It was like a castle-so many rooms! And such tall walls! But where had she seen a castle before? In a book, she thought, but when she tried to remember what book she couldn't recall. Nor could she recall any books she read. Only the beautiful ice distracted her from getting frustrated.

Then finally she slipped and found herself in a dark room unlike the other rooms in her ice castle. The frost lining her arms thickened as she shivered. She didn't like this place. How did she get out?

And then a breeze brushed over her. It felt and smelled different from her friendly winter winds. Bristling with ice, she turned, heart hammering-

To come face to face with the most terrifying monster. It crackled with electricity, pounded its metal hooves, and glared down at her with an uncanny, human like mask.

Mask...it wore a mask just like the scarecrow kid did.

Before she could think more on it, the monster gave a metallic roar that made the stony walls shiver. She cried out. It raised its hooves above her and she threw her arms out to defend herself. Frost flew forward and whirled up the creatures legs and body. Joints crackled, metal screeched, and beautiful sky blue ice grew up it like vines. Rope over rope constricted it till a crystal of ice stood before her with the masked monster held captive within it.

She stumbled back, alarmed. She had done that? But the monster had to be a mile high and a million pounds and she was so tiny. Tiny things couldn't do that to big things.

Eager to get as far as possible from this place before the monster could thaw or break out, she urged the frost from her fingers to the stone walls and climbed her way back to the ice castle above, where she found a place for herself far, far away from her frozen monster in the basement.

A week later a young boy with blue eyes and gold hair entered her home. Too shy to make herself known, and afraid he too was a hater of snow, she watched in awe as he destroyed the terrible thing in the basement with a strange mask that had power to changed his form. It started her wondering if she too just wore a mask and perhaps there were others outside of this lonely mountain like her. Would the mask come off if she left this snow? Could she find someone to tell her why all she knew was ice?

Unbeknownst to the boy with the magic masks, she followed after him out of her ice castle and into the big wide world outside.

$%^*&*^(*&%^$

Link woke abruptly to banging and raised voices below him. Out of habit he thought the worse and jumped out of bed, unsheathed his sword, and hooked on his shield in one movement. He fell down the ladder and landed with a thud. He could see the whole family running about ahead. Kane was the first one to see him standing in the hallway armed for battle. He snickered.

"Nice trousers."

Carrol spotted the blade. "Good gracious! Put that thing away and get dressed, we need every man we can get!"

Link lowered his sword and shield. "What's going on?"

"A house on the edge of the village caved in on the west side last night, too much snow. The family says there's still someone buried in there."

The next thing he knew he was wrapped up to his nose again and going at a wreckage of old wood and snow with a shovel among a fleet of other men. There was a panic fervor to their digging. He had never before thought a blizzard could be dangerous in this way. Even as he dug, he heard several other men talking breathlessly about the other houses that had caved in like this in the past few years of this never-ending winter. Others had died then.

_This village deserves to freeze!_

He thrusted his shovel beneath a beam. What had Tom done to her to make her say such a thing? Why was she here at all?

He turned to make sure his pile of snow wouldn't fall into the hole he was creating and saw a familiar, pale face surrounded in black cloth. Watery, tired eyes watched him.

"Don't just stand there, Shadow," he turned back to his hole, "grab a shovel."

"No can do, Hero. And Shadow?"

Link huffed. "So sorry, I forgot, you're a jerk."

"How quaint. Jerk. You're such a princess, and also there's no more shovels. If you haven't noticed, some noble folk are using their hands."

Link looked to the side. Sure enough, a few villagers were going at the snow with their hands and prying beams out.

"Besides," Shadow sneezed and sniffed, "you wouldn't want me to die of this deadly illness, would you?"

Link fumed and found himself beating at the snow and planks as though they were Ganon's stalfoes. Why did he even bother to help that...that...moron! He had thought just maybe there was more to his shadow than he knew, but so far he was proving himself an idiot.

He furiously lifted a beam-and stalled. Plaid cloth shown through the snow.

"Over here!" he hollered. Men swarmed over to him. In minutes a man was pried out of the snow, his flesh grey-blue. From beneath his frozen arms was a little girl, who was shivering wildly. She could only have been little over three. The moment a man picked her out of the snow she began to cry. A tearful woman rushed over and wrapped the girl up in quilts.

"My husband," she said breathlessly, "my husband-"

"He's dead."

The village fell still. The only sound was the crying toddler. Even Shadow didn't say one of his snide remarks.

The woman just stared. Somehow, her silence was more loud than if she had screamed out her very soul. Link stumbled towards them, needing to be with her and cringing against sympathy like pain twisting his guts, but once he reached her he didn't know what to say. He could only look down with her at the blue corpse dressed in that plaid over shirt. The woman knelt down, still clutching tightly to her daughter. Link was one of the few close enough to hear her beneath the wailing child.

"Love," she shook him, "love, it's all right. She's safe. You can wake up now."

Shadow coughed, wiped his nose, and turned around. Link watched him go out of the corner of his eye.

"Love, it's all right. It's all right." the woman said. She left her hand against the cold cheek of the dead man in the snow.


	7. Fury, Darkness, and a Trap

**I felt stupid reading this chapter to my husband. Writing it is like pooping, and sometimes reading it out loud is like...**_**playing**_** with the poop. **

**Review, homies, 'cause my hubby don't tell me much concerning this poop. I just hope it's, you know, AMAZING poop. **

Chapter 7: Fury, Darkness, and a Trap

"Shadow,"

Dark Link turned from his paisley meal of cheese and bread. Link stood in his doorway with sword and shield on his back, a haunted look on his face. For once, he felt no satisfaction in seeing his original in pain. In fact, he felt nothing. So numb. Why was he so often so numb?

"What has the Snow Maiden said to you?"

Dark Link didn't ask how he knew. The hero had a way with asking just the right people what he needed to know.

"What do you plan to do with her?" he asked.

Link said nothing. This annoyed him, and it felt good to feel it.

"I'm not going to tell you until you tell me what you plan with her."

"Why do you care?" Link asked flatly.

"My information, isn't it?"

His opposite leaned against the doorframe. "I want to stop her. Stop this winter."

"How very specific. And how do you plan to do that?"

"Maybe I'll know after you tell me."

Dark Link sniffed, rubbed his eyes, and decided he didn't feel good enough to try to be witty. Being sick sucked, though he did feel better than yesterday.

"She doesn't have a name that she knows of," he said quietly, "and she wants help. She doesn't want to be nameless anymore-no one, anymore. She mentioned the only thing she remembered from the beginning was this boy wearing a freaky mask of sorts."

His other flinched towards him. "Mask?"

"Yeah. I think the boy created her, whatever he was."

"What did this mask look like?"

"I dunno, all she said was that it had lots of horns."

Link's expression hardened to a look Dark Link had seen rarely. "Majora."

He raised an eyebrow and lifted a piece of cheese. "I take it you know of this?"

"Majora's Mask is evil. That's all you need to know."

"More than Ganon?"

"It makes Ganon look positively humane."

Dark Link whistled. "Guess we do have more in common than even she thinks."

"I need your help, Shadow."

"Oh? In dying, I assume, since that's the only thing I'm licensed to help you in, persay."

"The Snow Maiden, I already tried talking to her. The moment she saw me she flipped and left."

Dark Link dropped his cheese and glared at him. "What did you do?"

"Nothing, I just asked her why she did this to the village," he looked away, "she said it deserved to freeze."

He knew that look. He wasn't Link's shadow for nothing. He put the plate of food aside and slipped off his bed, ignoring the way the floor tipped slightly and his head throbbed in protest.

"Out with it."

Link bowed his head. His bangs swept in front of his face. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You can't hide anything from me, hero. Stop making me angry by trying."

A moment passed filled with the faint sound of moaning breeze outside. Dark Link wondered if another blizzard would come tonight. He wondered how this little town would avoid being buried this time around.

"Don't make me get my sword."

Link snorted. "Please, don't you have, as you said, a 'deadly illness'?"

"I could kill you with my eyes closed, now can't you just tell me what you know about her that I don't? I've already told you all I know, and I won't take kindly if you just use me like that."

His opposite sighed and pushed off from the doorframe. "Some boys in this village did something to her. They figured out how to draw her out and then made it a game to draw her near to a fire. From what I heard, one boy went after her one night on his own and the next morning they found him dead in the snow, naked." Link blew on his fingers. "Din, it's cold up here, no wonder you're sick. How do you stand it?"

Dark Link said nothing. His mind was buzzing. There wasn't much question to him what that boy had done to her to merit his death. The moment his mind clicked into that conclusion, something awful and overpowering came over him. It crackled at the edge of his hearing, and just barely he could see the magic that made his body fuzz. The lines of his boots blurred against the floor, and he looked up from them to see the hero staring at him.

"Shadow, what are you doing?"

"This village does deserve to freeze." he grabbed his cloak. Oddly, he couldn't feel his cold anymore, and he knew it was the angry popping of dark magic in his ears that did it. He was becoming less human, he figured. "It would be a waste of my time to help you meet her, but I'm not going to help for you. I hope her blizzard freezes you over. I hope she freezes all of you."

"What? After all I've-" Link paused to pinch his nose. He took a deep breath. "Shadow, I don't get you. No, I do, I just can't comprehend it."

"And?"

Link lifted his head and met his eyes, something he rarely did unless one of them had a sword to their throat. "That you really are just evil-that you can exist being nothing but darkness and hate and fury and wear my face at the same time."

"But I'm not even that," said Dark Link, "I am just fury. Sometimes, I'm even less."

Link gave him a peculiar look as he walked past. He knew his eyes were tinting bright red as they had when he had first met his opposite in that room of mirrors. It was times like this he could almost smell the damp stones and mildew of the Water Temple. That was when he had met Link. That's when he looked up and saw who's shadow he was.

He was almost mad that she had killed the boy who had violated her. Now he had nothing to kill himself besides the man next to him when he wanted to so badly.

But she needed Link. She needed a hero. And for that reason, Dark Link would do that which was completely opposite to his nature and help the original.

He reached for his sword and shield.

!%$&%$%$%^&8

He remembered how the water felt so cool against his wounds, though the pain was exhilarating. He had failed his master, but that rush of bloodlust facing his original, though far from happy, had been the first solid thing he had felt since his world begun. Link. He knew him better than he knew himself out of instinct. Through that, he finally had a sense of himself. He was simply everything Link was not. Not heroic, not good, not kind, not self-sacrificing, not peaceable...

Yet why did he still feel so numb and lost?

Blood tinted the water about him. He thought it strange that, being a shadow, he should bleed. He watched it swirl as he waited for what he knew must come.

A swirl of black. Another shadow formed before him, tall and broad shouldered. He watched it move towards him in the reflection of the water.

"You failed."

He said nothing to his master. He even knew him more than he knew himself. His master was not to be refused or ignored. But he didn't know what to say.

"Get up."

There was no 'cannots' with Ganon. He forced his bleeding, trembling legs beneath him and stood tall and stronger than he was.

"Sheath your sword."

He did so and kept his eyes to the sorcerer's boots.

"I had such high expectations for you, boy. But, I can't merely kill you, it would be a waste of magic. Perhaps I'll find use for you in the future."

The familiar, acidic smell of his master's dark magic surrounded him and he found himself, for the first time, feeling afraid. It was strange, for he hadn't felt frightened when the hero had his sword to his chest and murder in his eyes. Then he had known his original was good-hearted and merciful and would never kill a fallen opponent unless he had to save others. But his master on the other hand...

He closed his eyes tightly, readying for pain, knees weakening. When nothing came and he opened his eyes, he found himself in the deepest of darkness, chains about his wrists and ankles and the smothering smell of miles of earth above him. His body still ached with wounds.

"Master,-"

"Don't fear, the magic that makes your body will not allow you to bleed to death," said the disembodied voice. "Or rather, I should say, I won't let you bleed to death. But think of this pain as part of your punishment."

He heard rustling in the darkness. His heart leapt to his throat.

The raucous laugh of the dark skinned man filled the darkness. The rustling grew louder. Dark Link couldn't see anything. He could feel the prickle of long legs against his throat. He reached frantically for his sword, but couldn't reach. His master had told him to sheath his sword...

"I thought you said you weren't going to kill me!"

"I'm not."

Pain shoot through his back as tiny fangs pierced his neck. He screamed. Stars flashed before his vision. His legs buckled.

And somewhere within all the torture he remembered shaking a bleeding knight and running from a woman with two, dark haired girls at her side. He remembered a little house he didn't know, a sky so blue it hurt his eyes, and the rich smell of horses.

He didn't want to kill. That's why he didn't want to become a knight.

The next thing he knew he was waking up from a daze of darkness and pain to the faint light of day. Above him was a roof of rubble that somehow hadn't bothered to kill him. The chains were gone, as where the monsters that had fed on him. He squinted up and saw blue. He could no longer smell that acidic magic.

Instinctively, he knew his master was gone, though far from dead. He looked down at his black gauntlets and wondered to his strange dreams. Then, forcing his weak body forward, he tore at the rocks above him and out into the first clear day he had seen in a while. A ways a way he could see a familiar green figure with a beautiful girl walking away from the wreckage.

His original.

Swaying, he limped after him. He was a shadow, after all.

#$%^#%*% #^&%^*$

The wind wavered in and out, as though unsure just how hard it wanted to blow. The villagers were still outside, shoveling snow off of other roofs so as to avoid another disaster. Link led Shadow to the Mayor's cabin. Shadow didn't ask why they were stopping here first.

Inside, Nani was just about to head out with a large, insulated canteen in her mittened hands. She stopped and looked at Shadow in confusion. Shadow looked back at her with a peculiar expression on his face.

"Have we met?" he asked gruffly.

She shook her head and looked back to Link, who was taking up an extra pair of snowshoes from besides the door and handing them to Shadow.

"Nani, do you know where the Mayor keeps his ropes?"

She nodded and led them back outside. As Link followed her to the barn, Shadow went about the task of strapping the snowshoes to his feet.

Link waited by the door as she brought him the ropes out of the darkness. She held onto them, though, as he reached for them. Her eyes gleamed like stars in the faint light of the sun outside.

"Don't do it." she said in her soft voice.

He was surprised. She had talked to him without being directly asked anything. The look on her face unnerved him, though.

"Don't do what?"

"Don't hurt her."

At that, he tugged the ropes out of her hands.

"Nani, you don't understand. She's killed people. She's killing them now, and I don't think she's going to soften her heart anytime soon."

She shook her soft mane of hair. "No."

"What do you mean 'no'?"

The way she lowered her usually soft eyes underneath her eyebrows made him uneasy. It was as though she could see through him, and what she saw she disagreed with. He shifted, wondering how such a look could have been hiding underneath such a pleasing smile.

"She isn't a monster."

"That's the thing," he slung the rope over his shoulder, not meeting her gaze, "she is."

Nani didn't follow him as he left. Shadow met him by the porch.

"What's the ropes for?" he asked.

"This girl can control the snow more or less, right?" he handed him one. "There's no telling if she'll call up a blizzard or something. I brought the rope in case she did so we don't get lost."

Shadow took up the rope and slung it back over his sheath. "Where do we plan on anchoring ourselves off of?"

"The farthest house-the one most on the edge, that is."

Shadow grinned. "You're horrible at directions. Don't you mean outlier? North? South?"

"Shut up."

"Never."

They trudged across the village, cloaks fluttering around them in the hesitant breeze. Villagers stopped in their work to watch the two brothers who had avoided each other until now. Link thought he noticed Kane on one roof nudge another youth and mutter something to him. His companion stared more earnestly now. Behind him, Shadow humped.

"The staring again," he sniffed, "I'm starting to wonder if they're all there. If they were, you'd think they would have left before the winter got this bad."

Link ignored him. He had an uneasy feeling in his gut. He couldn't shake off the memory of Nani's disappointment. No, disapproving was an understatement. But the fire in his chest wouldn't allow him to let this winter last any longer. Not when he could do something about it, and the image of the woman begging the blue corpse to wake up was far stronger than his uneasiness.

Link didn't look back as they made it to the outlying home. It was shabbier than most, for the villagers had moved inward as the snow crowded them in. He and Shadow found a post by the back door and tied themselves up.

"All right, hero," said Shadow as he tugged his last knot. "What's your plan now? Stand here until she wanders over? Look pretty?"

Link slipped out his ocarina. "No. Come on. Let's give this village some space."

When they had reached the end of the rope and the village was a good hundred yards or so behind them, Link readied his ocarina. He glanced at Shadow, who's black colorings made him stand out like a beacon amongst all the whiteness. He was squinting across the sunlit plain of snow.

"How do you know she'll come out?" Shadow asked. "As far as I know, she's not the most outgoing type."

"That's what this is for," he lifted his ocarina, "and I'm going to need you to sing."

"Excuse me?"

"She loves music. Can't ignore it. I'm not sure why, but I think she's looking for something that has to do with it."

"Or someone."

"What songs do you know?"

Shadow rolled his eyes. "Just play the damn thing before I change my mind. Goddesses, I can't believe I'm doing this."

Even Link was faintly amazed at how easy Shadow had complied. He lifted the flute and played an old tune he knew at the corner of his memory. When Shadow began to gently sing the lyrics, he nearly stumbled the notes in amazement. He knew this song? But he had learned it from a dead man of a lost village, far away on the edge of Hyrule. Had Shadow somehow followed him there? But he was sure he would've known if he had followed him. Shadow would never pass up a chance to ambush him.

"_Take that broken thread to the street, hold it to a lover's neck, tell me if it makes you feel complete. No, rain's not coming down. No, rain's not coming down. But when it does, I'll meet you there, with that broken thread and me."_

He sounded...nice. Was that how he sounded like? He shook himself. What did it matter? How did he know that song?

The low breeze grew. Snowflakes fluttered up into it and brushed around them. The sunlight flickered, making them gleam and sparkle like flying diamonds. Shadow's gaze was distant as he sung, and for the first time Link didn't see himself in his face, but someone else. The red dimmed from his eyes and his chin lifted.

"_ So dirty is your city holding to a lover's neck, such a pity, such a pity. So broken is your red thread, so lost and incomplete. No, rain's not coming down into your dirty city. But when it does, I'll meet you there, with that broken thread and she."_

A pale, bare foot stepped out from the fluttering snow. The sunlight broke through the cloud of snow in beams. For a breath Link was caught up in the beauty of it. A great tower of sparkling diamonds and gold sunlight. He found himself even more breathless as the girl who created it stepped through the curtains, and he forgot all about his intentions with the sword on his back.

Such large, bright blue eyes, framed by lashes that could have been snow. And she was so close, he could have reached out and touched that mane of white hair getting lost in all the flying, glittering snowflakes.

All that had been hidden in the blizzard last night?

Shadow had stopped singing. Link happened to look over and saw the most amazing thing of all: his dark, murderous nemesis had softened. His eyes were gentle, and his small smile kind.

"I brought him," he said.

The Snow Maiden's eyes were sharp and wary on Link, who tensed. Brought him? They had arranged this?

"Him?" she asked. "The hero of _those_ people?"

The ocarina slipped from his fingers and he just caught it. He took a step back. Shadow turned to meet his gaze, and instantly it flicked back to his old hate.

"Yeah. You're in luck, he came right to me after last night's blizzard."

Link felt the blood drain from his face. The child of Majora and the creation of Ganon...

He had walked right into a trap.


	8. Agency, Distrust, and Burlesque Dancers

**It's bizarre when you suddenly realize the story you're writing reflects on something you didn't intend it to. Friends, there's some screwed up things going on in our world today. **

Chapter 8: Agency, Distrust, and Burlesque Dancers

Link drew his sword.

"I should have known," he growled.

The Snow Maiden flinched back, eyes wide. The column of snow thickened and lost its fantastical gleam.

"What the hell are you doing!" cried Shadow.

But right as he said that, Link lunged. The Snow Maiden leapt away. At the last moment he felt the tip of his sword snag onto something-and slip through. She yelped in pain.

"Liar!" she wailed. "All of you, liars!"

The snow filled the air. Link swung again but ended up coughing on snow as he tried to breathe. The sun was blocked out and the wind howled.

"Lie, lie!"

The snow died down, but the sky had filled with foreboding clouds. The angry gales swept waves of snow over the land. Link shaded his face-and heard the tall-tale sound of a sword being drawn.

"_You bastard!_"

Link only barely raised his sword in time. The strength of Shadow's blow sent painful vibrations all the way to his shoulder blades.

"You damn, stupid-what the hell was that for?! _You were suppose to help her!"_

As Shadow proceeded to wail on him, Link didn't have the breath to respond. He had could never remember it being this hard to keep his arms out. His sword shook painfully in his hand and his muscles protested.

"Shadow-"

"You were suppose to help her! You damn bastard, you hurt her! What kind of hero are you?!"

"Shadow, what-"

"If she dies because of you I swear I'll-"  
His sword flew out of his hands, probably snapping his fingers in the process. He stumbled back, tripped over the rope tied about his waist, and fell into the snow. Shadow's blade came whistling around. He clenched his eyes shut.

Nothing came. Shadow stood above him, puffing, eyes ablaze with rage. Against his throat he could feel the sharp tip of the sword. He couldn't move. This was finally it. Shadow was going to kill him.

Shadow let out an angry shout. Link flinched.

"Dammit! I don't have time for the likes of you." He swung his sword behind him at the rope, sheathed it, and ran off into the storm.

"Wait! You'll freeze!"

But within moments the wind and snow had swallowed his dark form.

Link sat there, stunned. In the snow a foot or so away was a blotch of bright red blood, slowly turning pink in the building snow. Next to it was the severed end of a rope that served as Shadow's anchor back to the village.

An hour later he stumbled into the mayor's cabin. His face and hands had gone numb from cold. A ways away sat Nani in the living room in front of the fire. She looked up at him then went back to her book. From the other side of the wall in the kitchen came the muffled voices of the rest of the family.

He hung up his snow shoes and began the tedious process of peeling off his winter gear. She said nothing to him and he said nothing to her. The snakes in his stomach wouldn't let him. By the time his boots were off, though, the squirming in his gut had grown painful. He couldn't stop shaking. He couldn't get his mind to settle.

Not knowing what else to do, he ambled over like a lost child and sat next to her. She didn't bother to acknowledge his presence and her long hair hid her face.

"We didn't have time to clear off all the roofs," came the Mayor's voice from the kitchen.

"Did you see how fast that blizzard came in?" said Kane.

"Of course, it was awful." said Jewels.

Nani turned a page. His insides hurt. He pulled his knees in and leaned his chin on his folded arms.

"Nani?" he said through the chatter of his teeth.

Her finger twitched. She was listening.

"Nani...what makes a person?"

She marked her spot with a leather bookmark and pulled her hair back behind her ears.

"Agency." she said, and closed her book.

"How do you know?"

She looked at him as though it were obvious. He waited, and so did she.

"Um..." he rubbed his arms. "I didn't do what you think I did, I'm just wondering what makes a person."

"You believe killing a monster isn't murder." she said bluntly. "Killing a person is. You want to make sure."

He stared. How did she know that? And what now? Did she think he was an idiot or some stupid, violent man? Immature? He looked down at his feet, pink with cold.

"Agency." she said.

"Dogs can choose what they want though, can't they? Whether to eat or run or, you know..." Dang it, he thought he had gotten over this self-consciousness.

"But they will always be dogs. They cannot choose to be otherwise. Same with monsters."

He thought of Shadow. "But what of those who look and act like people?"

"People," she opened up her book and thumbed for her bookmark, "are persons, aren't they?"

He fell silent, an awful feeling coming over him.

"But...what if they can't choose what they were made to be? What if they were made to be evil?"

She gave him a weird look. He blushed.

"Nevermind." he muttered. "Long story. But I...I didn't..." he remembered the patch of blood on the snow.

_If she dies because of you!_

She lowered her book, softening. That tender warmth that usually pervaded her returned. "Link-"

Kane decided to burst in then. "Link! Did you get her?"

Nani and Link quickly looked away from each other. "If I did, do you think this snow would still be around?"

"Got who?"

Kane's father, the Mayor, wandered out. Kane blanched.

"Uh, um, this girl who thinks he's good looking, that's all."

The Mayor looked skeptical. "Which girl? The Stephenson's daughter?"

"No, someone else."

"And why would the snow stop?"

"Figure of speech." said Link.

The Mayor eyed them over once more before shrugging and landing in his deep-seated armchair with a groan.

"Those poor people," he said, "those poor, poor people. I only pray they'll be no more deaths in tonight's blizzard. Any ideas on the source of this?" he looked at Link.

Link hesitated, then nodded, making Kane tense. "Yeah. It's just like the last time this happened: it's a curse of the Majora's mask. The curse is connected to a monster of sorts and once I kill the monster the curse should break."

The Mayor didn't bother asking what a 'Majora's Mask' was. "Do you have any idea where this monster is?"

"Yeah." he stood and brushed off his pant legs. "I've been doing some searching. I think I might be able to narrow it down by tomorrow."

"Good. Good." The Mayor let out a long sigh. "Nani, any chance I could have a cup of your cocoa?"

While Nani shuffled to the kitchen, Kane and Link exchanged a look and gravitated back to the cellar. Kane didn't bother keeping the door open this time, plunging them into darkness.

"What happened? Where's Shadow?"

"He," Link let out a breath, "he cut his line and ran off after the Snow Maiden. Din, Kane, I think I've done something really, really stupid."

"What! You stupid? He-aw man, Link, he's going to die. I mean, not to sound harsh or anything, but there's no way he's going to make it back in that storm before freezing, if he hasn't frozen already."

"I know. Trust me, I know." Link put his hand to his face and covered his eyes even though he couldn't see anything in the dark. "I was the one that scared her away. I thought they had conspired something against me and...goddesses, I'm such an idiot, I may have just doomed us all. Shadow was my last chance at drawing her out."

"Hero, Shadow was all our last chance."

#%^&%$% %

The blizzard threw blades of cold at him at first. Then the cold starting blowing through him. He wanted to cry out for her, but he didn't know her name any more than he knew his own. Snow? Maiden? That was stupider than calling himself Mud.

So he called her the only way he knew how: he sung.

He sang that strange song he somehow knew, he sang songs he heard in taverns, he sang love songs, nameless songs, wordless songs, he sang until his voice had grown hoarse and his face and lungs had grown numb. He wasn't aware of when he stopped walking, but he found himself on his knees. The storm howled about him.

At some point the wind seemed to lessen and he knew she had finally come.

"What are you doing?" she asked tonelessly. "You're not like me. You're going to freeze to death."

"I know." he rasped.

"Why are you trying so hard? I hardly even know you." even her voice had gone cold now.

"Because I didn't lie to you. I didn't know he would do that, he's a real idiot sometimes. And..." he coughed on frost. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Even through the curtains of snow he could see the scarlet dying her dress. She turned away. Her shoulders were shaking.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"What reason would I have for lying?"

She snorted. "What reason would any of you have for lying? And yet that's all you people have ever done to me-lie, lie, lie," she wagged her white head to and fro with her words. "Then you promise never to lie to me, sing me sweet things and get my hopes all up, then lie, lie, lie-_and I thought you were different!_"

An overwhelming exhaustion came over him there. He slumped to the side. "What gave you that idea? I told you I wasn't good."

"Exactly," she whispered. "You didn't lie. You told me exactly what you were. I thought...I thought maybe if you just told the truth to me I'd have someone for the first time who wouldn't just lie about what they're going to do to me...but I'm an idiot." she kneeled down to him. Her body trembled with pain like a reed in the blizzard winds. Her eyes were cold, but not in a cruel way. Rather, in a way some went when they had gone past all feeling. "You're going to freeze out here, and if not that you're still sick. You shouldn't have followed me."

"But you're bleeding..." he slurred.

"Then I'll bleed. I don't want to be alive anyways."

"I want you to be."

A stillness came over her. The winds wailed on. Snow was getting into his eyes. So sleepy...he wasn't sure if he felt the cold much anymore.

"You...want me to be alive?"

"Please?" it was the first time he had ever pleaded in his life. But his focus was wavering in and out. All he could concentrate on were those blue eyes in the snow that had once asked if they could be with him.

"You were right," he continued, "I am lonely. But if you die, I'll always be lonely, because you're...you're..."

She waited, but he couldn't quite think of what exactly she was. She was already so many things-so many wonderful things. He knew he was being an idiot and very unlike himself, but the world was spinning and the pain of the cold was starting to ease him into some beckoning place.

He saw her hesitate. A bit of feeling returned to her icy gaze.

"I don't want you to die either." she kneeled down before him and moved to touch him, but thought better of it and withdrew her ivory hand. "But...I don't know how...I don't know how I can do this anymore. What if you lie to me just like all the others?" Diamond like tears fell down her cheeks and froze at her chin. "You told me yourself, you're not good. If you were to lie to me again, I already hurt so much it's hard to breathe. I don't want to go through this. I want to die." she sniffed. "But that doesn't mean you have to. Stay here. I'll get some help. I think there's someone nearby who made a snow cave. I can feel it turning the winds aside."

He weakly raised his hand. "No-wait."

But she had vanished back into the snow.

For a moment he kneeled there as the wind built snow about him. He thought of the smell of horses, of warm summer days, of a middle-age woman with laugh lines in all the right places of her face. The last thing he thought of before giving in and falling on his face was of Ganon, standing before him in a crowd of stalfoes, smiling.

$#%^%*% #$%

The tent was alit from the inside with rainbow colors and the three boys were laughing. Dane watched, his ire rising.

"Come on, man," said one who was suppose to be his friend. "You're pa will never know. We won't tell! You've got to see this girl's curves!"

Jake, a flaming ginger, raised a hand. "Wait guys, I think we're going about this the wrong way." he smirked. "You have different tastes, don't you Dane?"

"Oooo." said the other two in unison.

"I'm sorry, Dane, but it won't work out between us." his friend snickered.

"Shut up, all of you." Dane growled. "I've already told you, I have more honor than that. What pride is there in goggling like a bunch of penises at a naked girl? Besides, she's worth more than that."

"She _likes _us looking, don't you know? Girls like being looked at, otherwise they wouldn't get themselves all pretty."

"And her sisters aren't too bad too."

Dane threw his hands in the air. "I'm leaving." He turned to walk away.

"Aw, but it'll be fun! You don't know what you're missing out on!"

"Wait, Dane, are you a virgin?"

"Oh dude, I think he is!"

They catcalled at his back. At that he froze, not out of embarrassment, but rather out of anger that he had ever thought these guys as friends. That this was considered normal. That he was considered weird for caring about honor and the ability to face any future lover of his with pride. He whirled on them.

"Yes," he snapped, "I'm a virgin. A damn good one too." he shook his head in disgust. "You know, this is what girls hate about guys the most. They think we don't care about them, and only about what's in their pants and that we're only after the best breasts or behind."

"How do you know that? Are you a girl yourself?"

"It's called a sister, nimwit!"

"You're sister? Which one?" asked his friend.

Jake rolled his eyes. "The easy one on the eyes, idiot, unless you're referring to the eight year old which I sure hope you're not."

"Creepy."

Dane couldn't see why he was still talking with these guys. It just made him so mad that they expected him to be like this. If he ever did find a girl, would she think this of him? But he wasn't even tempted to go into the exotic dancer tent with his friends. Any shame he would feel would ruin any arousal he could have ever gotten from a burlesque dancer, no matter how beautiful.

"You guys are pathetic." he said. "One day you'll face your wives and look back at this and regret what you've done."

The three boys exchanged glances, then laughed.

"Listen to him, he's so serious. It's just a girl! Don't you like girls?"

"It's like he's already married or something!"

"Dane, you need to loosen up. Marriage is years away, and we need to enjoy the time before we get chained like that, you know? Besides, all our dads did this before, and our moms don't care. They know they were just guys. It's healthy."

"And trust me," said Jake, thumbing towards the tent, "I seriously doubt anything will ever be better than this."

"You'll regret it!" purred his friend.

"Then I'll regret it." said Dane solidly. "It wouldn't be nearly as bad as having to live with myself after going in there." He made to leave again. He was just wondering how he would tell his sister that the charming ginger guy she had a crush on was a sleezeball when something he heard said ginger mutter made him freeze.

"Though, that sister of his, man, I wouldn't mind her. Have you seen her legs?"

He wasn't even entirely sure why that statement pushed him over the edge. All he remembered was the idea of stupid red-head Jake with his lustful eyes on his older sister before he was landing his fists on every bit of him he could reach. His friend and Jake's minion were shouting things and scrambling to pull them apart-but he just punched them too. If there was anything Dane was proud of, it was his punch. Soon all three of them were upon him, yelling and cursing, and he just wailed on them all.

But no matter how good his punch, three against one could only go one way in the end. Soon he found himself pinned against a tree by the his once-friend and Jake's minion in front of that stupid tent as Jake staggered to his feet, wiping the blood from his nose.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" he yelled. "What are you? Some freak? Some wannabe mama's boy?"

"I'm the son of a knight," he said. "That's what I am!"

"So you think you're better than us just because you're dad has that stupid title, huh?"

Jake slugged him in the gut. Dane bent over, wheezing. His friend let go of his arm when Jake punched him again.

"He's just weird, Jake," he said, "just let him go, I'm sorry for inviting him."

Jake kicked him. His minion let him fall to the ground.

"Come on, Jake, just leave him alone."

To Dane's faint surprise, Jake actually listened to him. He wiped the blood from his face again and sniffed. The blood clashed with the color of his hair.

"Let's go, I don't want to waste this ticket."

"But dude, you're covered in blood!" his minion looked down at his arm. "And I think he jammed my fingers good."

"Whatever, girls like a man with a few battle wounds."

The three left him at the foot of the tree, wheezing and clutching his stomach. He glared at them as they lifted the flap of the tent, letting out the sound of trilling music. His friend didn't even have the guts to look back. He should really stop thinking him as his friend.

"Assholes," he muttered, "all this just because I didn't want to gawk at some whore, how very mature. Ugh, damn."

Eventually his lungs re-inflated enough for him to ease himself back to his feet and limp home.


	9. Quilts, Snow Caves, and Instruments

**Dude, guys, guys, guess what? I actually got a job doing writing! Sure it's a really tiny one on a freelancing site...not to mention it would make you blush if you heard what I had to write about-heck, I'm blushing-but it's a job! I can use the money to buy bacon for my son!**

**Well...me bacon so I can make milk for my son. He's still a bit too young to eat anything, though once in a while I let him lick a grape. ^.^**

**Anyhoo, enjoy, review, and please let me know what you think.**

**And also, you readers who don't leave a trace that you're here and have been following quietly, I just want to say something...HI! HOW ARE YOU!**

**okay, I'm gewd. **

Chapter 9: Quilts, Snow Caves, and Instruments

The small window of the attic rattled. No matter how hot the little brazier fire burned, the room remained cold. Link huddled about it within several quilts, trying not to think. The coals popped to each other with red hot kisses.

With a creak the door on the floor lifted and a slender figure with a blanket over her shoulders appeared. He could just make out Nani's face in the faint light of the coals.

She shuffled over and made a nest of herself in the blankets on the mattress opposite of him.

"Hello." she said quietly.

He looked out the window and then tucked his face out of the blankets.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

"I was worried. You're asking questions about being a murderer and that brother of yours is still out there. You blame yourself for that."

Link stared. "How do you know that?"

"When you listen more than talk you pick up a lot of stuff most people miss."

They listened to the rattling little window and the popping coals. Link rubbed his tired eyes.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Oh, why do you care." he said without thinking. He mentally slapped himself. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound annoyed, it's just...I'm sorry."

"You have a lot on your mind." she said as though that excused him. "And you deserve to have someone worry about you. You're a good man."

He smiled weakly. "That's sweet of you."

She bowed her head, those promising eyes sparkling even in the dim light. They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment before he looked away.

"Shadow-the guy I went out with, he's still out there. I couldn't stop him, but it's my fault."

She cocked her head to the side, questioning. He hid his face.

"I thought I was doing what I needed to. That snow girl is evil, she's killing people, she was created by an evil curse, and Shadow, well, he's been trying to kill me ever since we met each other."

Her eyebrows flew up before they came back down in a disbelieving frown.

He hesitated. "He's...not the greatest guy, and he doesn't like me much. But I got into a situation and, well, I jumped to conclusions and now," he looked back out at the snow whirling by the window. "I think I may have-I think they're both...and though I always figured the world would be better without the two of them, created by darkness as they are, I still have this awful feeling in my gut. I don't understand." he buried himself deeper into the quilts till all he saw was black. "Nani, I think I may have done something awful."

The house groaned about them. He thought of the caved in roof of that morning and felt fearful for the other villagers. How many would be smothered in this incredible blizzard? What if the Snow Maiden was so upset the storm never ended? What if he had mortally wounded her and her death didn't bring about the end of the curse? Worse yet, if she did die, did that make him a...a...

Nani made a soft noise to get his attention, but he didn't move. He didn't want her to see him and the horror spreading on his face. And that softness he had seen on Shadow's face-how could Shadow be completely evil if he could look at someone like that? Never mind the fact that it was the Snow Maiden. It was almost as if he had fallen in love with her or something, but his shadow was suppose to be incapable of love.

The monster in his gut just grew uglier and uglier. He could feel his arms trembling with the windowpanes. He flinched when a soft hand reached through the quilts and ever so gently lifted his face up. Nani had left her own cocoon and leaned down in front of him. Backlighted by the soft red ember glow, he could just see the faint outline of her body through her long-sleeved nightgown. He flinched back.

"What are you doing?" he asked, "You're going to get cold."

Her gaze jumped from one of his eyes to the other, as though reading him. A expression of what could only be compassion wrinkled the skin between her eyebrows. Her other hand curled against her chest. She rolled in her lips, then sighed.

"There's nothing I can say." she said. "But...I can see."

"See?"

"You aren't a murderer."

He took a shaking breath, but was afraid to pull his face away. He wanted the promise held in her mouth and eyes more than ever now, and waited for them.

"How...how do you know?"

"Because murderers are filled with hate."

He inwardly crumpled and drew away. "But I was filled with hate. I was angry that they drew me into a trap I assumed was there, I was angry that she killed that woman's husband and angry that Shadow always tried to kill me. I'm...Nani, I've ruined everything. What if everyone...what if everyone dies because of me." his voice broke. What was he saying? Why was he divulging all this to a girl he'd only known for almost a week now?

Her hand came back and he could not deny the gentleness she used to coax him back out of his blankets.

"There's always tomorrow. But right now, it is night, and you have done the best you could."

"But-"

She shook her head and he snapped his mouth close. Then she gave him one of those smiles that held the promise and had caught his attention the first time he saw her.

He wasn't sure what came over him then. The yearning inside of him swallowed his reasoning and he leaned forward, searching for comfort. He kissed her. Before she could think otherwise he had his hand out and was drawing her in. He wasn't even entirely sure what he was doing. It wasn't like he had kissed a lot of girls in his lifetime. Mostly it was just girls kissing him out of the blue when he was still too naive to know what love was. Now he found the need for the soft girl in front of him instinctual and had to fight not to force her closer. Soft, now, soft.

And then he woke up. He jerked away.

"Oh gods," he wanted to hide his face like a child, but couldn't stop staring at her. "Oh gods, aw Din, Nani, I'm...please, don't be mad, I don't-I'm so sorry."

Her face was blank as she stood up. It was worse than if she had yelled at him or even scowled. He couldn't read anything from her. The sinking feeling in his chest rivaled the monster preying on his innards with guilt. Before he could think of anything to say that could possibly fix the situation, she left like a white ghost in her nightgown to the trapdoor and disappeared into the darkness below.

!#$%#$! #%#

There was a middle-aged, broad shouldered man waiting for her at the small entrance to his cave. Through the fingers of her snowflakes she could feel the sad lines on his face and knew, instinctively, that this one had suffered a lot of heartache. For some reason, that drew her closer to him than she intended. Snow attempted to blot out her wound and stop the bleeding, but her blood was too bright, too thick. Her world teetered. But now that she saw he was close enough to bring the dark man, she turned around to bring him out. Her heart was thundering in her chest, and the snow about her seemed to only grow thicker as though fearful for her.

It fluttered about the dark man's form, marking the place for her. He had fallen face first into the snow. Horrified, she dropped to his side and turned him over. She couldn't have been gone too long.

"Wake up, I've found him." she said. Then, realizing what she had done, she snatched her hands away. The last time she had touched a man she had frozen him, but no, she shouldn't be afraid. She was defending herself then. Now she was the only hope of this man getting out of this alive. She reached for his neck to feel for a pulse, but barely felt anything, let alone warmth. Her chest filled with panic.

"No, please, you can't die." she shook him. "Please, I don't even know you yet! I wanted to know you so bad!"

He didn't respond. His eyes remained closed. His lips were cracked and dark blue. His black hair had frozen to his pale face.

It was all her fault. He was gone, and now it was all her fault. He had wanted her to be alive. She had wanted to be with him.

Frantic, she ignored her weakening legs and heaved him over her back. Her side spiked with horrible pain but she trudged on. Ice built up around her limbs to give her strength and the blizzard urged her towards the cave. Her vision blurred, but either from tears or loss of blood, she couldn't tell.

Somehow, the man could see her through the small opening of his cave, which he had been filling in with snow. It was probably due to the black figure slung over her.

"Help!" she cried.

He scrambled out of his cave and scuttled to her. The wind battered him, but she was too upset to calm it.

"What are you doing out here!?" he cried. "What happened to you? You're bleeding bad, miss!"

"Ignore me, help him!" she dropped the young man to the snow before collapsing herself. "Please, help him, he won't wake up!"

The man fought his way to the dark boy to drag him into the cave. Part of his meticulously built wall at the entrance collapsed. Heart pounding against any thoughts otherwise, she limped after him. The world was tipping. Inside the cave was a warm fire which he pulled her friend to and spread him out. A thrill of fear crossed over her at the flames. She use to love that warmth so much it hurt. Warmth...such a betraying sensation. Warmth and men were just cruelties created by some sadistic God.

The grizzled man put his ear to the shadow man's chest. For a few tense seconds he just listened as the wind howled outside. Without showing his expression, he sat up.

"He's dead." he said. "Or very close to it. I don't think there's anything we can do. I'm sorry miss."

The world was tipping precariously now. The floor was scooping beneath her feet. Dead? But...he had only wanted to...only wanted to...

As darkness rushed in the last thing she noticed was a pack against the wall with a glittering, brass horn sticking out of the top and a tambourine on the side.

'Music,' she thought. Then all went black.

$%^*^%$%#$#

He once heard from somewhere that if you watched the ground as you walked it meant you were dehydrated. But after a few years of testing this out, he realized that most people just look at the ground when they walk, without any explainable reason that he could think of. Perhaps it was a security habit, built so one is extra sure where all the pits and rocks were. But oftentimes he forced himself to look up at his surroundings as he walked without looking down once, and he never tripped or stumbled. His feet knew where to go.

So as he forced himself to look up this time with these thoughts in mind, it was a good thing he did, or he would've never noticed the young girl huddled into a tight ball between too large boulders. Cuts speckled her exposed skin and her long brown hair was covered in brambles. He ran as fast as he could with a huge pack on his back to her, jangling with bells and tiny drums along the way.

"Hey, hey!" he called. "What happened? Are you okay?"

She looked up with wide, dark eyes. Something in the way she looked at him, wan and pale, made him flinch.

"Woa, you look like you've seen hell, little miss."

She took a deep shuddering breath and dropped her head again, which begun the process of her body melting out of the crevice. He caught her clumsily. She couldn't have been more than thirteen, and bony as can be.

"What happened?"

She took another one of her stuttering sighs. "They ate the horses."

"What?"

"The horses," she murmured, voice dry. "They ate them. Ate them right up while they were alive. Ate them right up."

He lowered her to the ground to slip off his pack. Wouldn't be good to drop fifes onto a traumatized girl.

"Why are you here? Where's your family?"

She stiffened, then blabbered faster. "Ate them. Ate them all. Ate the horses."

"What did?"

She fell silent. When he peaked beneath her curtain of dark brown hair he found her eyes closed. It would appear that she had passed out. He felt his chest ache for this girl. She could have been only a year or two older than his own missing little girl. What if she too had a father who wondered where she was now? What would he want someone who found his little dancer to do?

Glancing back at his fat pack, he groaned inwardly. He wasn't as young as he use to be, and it was hard enough carrying around his instruments let alone a teenager. He searched for a alcove or cave of sorts. On finding one that seemed the right size, he stuff his pack in and carefully covered it with stones. Once he was satisfied, he picked up the emancipated girl and continued down the path to a village he knew lay just beyond the mountain pass. The people there had kind souls, and he knew he could find help for her there.

And maybe this time, just maybe, he may find a clue about his own daughter, lost on the first day of a June winter.


	10. Frozen

**Btw, I deleted the last scene in the previous chapter because, based off of reviews, I realized it made absolutely no sense and didn't add to the story. It was from the Snow Maiden's father's point of view finding Nani a few years previously.**

**Holy crap, it's cold. I want a refund on this Spring! It was not what Winnie the Pooh said it was gonna be! Sheesh. **

**Baby Kai is doing well, I'm munching on homemade bread, and dang it, I'm telling a story! Life is good. Please review. I wanna hear yer thoughts.**

**Oh, and to you reviewers who are signed on as guests and who are not reviewing off of an account on fanfiction, I adore you, but I won't be able to really answer your question you may ask or message you unless review with a fanfiction account. Just a heads up. **

Chapter 10: Frozen

Link hadn't sleep much before the crisp morning broke out over the village. The room felt as though it had been turned to ice and he could see his breath rising above his blankets. The fire had grown dark and the brazier was the only thing in the room that didn't have a fine film of frost. Teeth chattering, he threw on his tunic and scuttled down the ladder. He found the family in the living room, huddled about the fireplace. They made space for him around the fire.

"Don't go outside." said the mayor.

"I wasn't planning on it." said Link.

"No, really," cut in Kane, "Jewels nearly suffocated on the air out there. It's so cold-"

"It freezes on the way down." whispered Jewels, then she shivered and coughed.

"Where's Nani?" he asked.

Kane shrugged while rubbing his arms through a quilt. "She hasn't come down yet. I don't blame her. If it weren't for having to go pee I wouldn't have left my bed either."

"Kane!"

"Mom, it's a bodily function, everyone does it."

"That doesn't mean you have to broadcast it to the world."

He sighed in exasperation. "Excuse me, Link, I had to make a tinkle of golden water."

His mother smacked him across the head and he yelped. Link smiled, but his muscles didn't want to work. He was fighting not to imagine what Shadow looked like right now, nor about what had happened the night before. He could only be thankful that Nani wasn't down here yet. But since he couldn't plan on going outside, he'd have to face her eventually.

"Has it ever been this cold before?" he asked.

"No. Never." said the mayor. "I've never experienced cold like this before."

"Neither have I." said his wife.

Kane rubbed his head. He grew uncharacteristically solemn and threw his blankets over his head like a hood.

"You don't think this is...the end, do you?"

A chill ran up Link's spine.

"Of course not." said Carrol, but even she didn't sound so sure to Link.

An awkward silence grew over them. Carrol shuffled closer to her husband and leaned her head on his quilted shoulder. Jewels sat next to her brother and reached her hand through his blankets. Link, on the other hand, was a stranger in all this and kept his distance, doing all he could to keep his eyes on the fire. He couldn't let them see his guilt. He couldn't face that.

Did this cold mean the Snow Maiden had died? Or, possibly, was this her reaction to Shadow's death? Though he had tried to kill Shadow many times in self-defense, this was different, this was wrong. He felt so utterly wrong.

When he felt Kane's questioning eyes wander to him he couldn't take it. He left the fire, dragging his blankets with him. Maybe he would go outside and take a big breath of that freezing air. Out in the hall from the living room he already could feel the numbing bite of ice on his feet, face, and hands. Half way to his ladder, he turned around and came face to face with none other than Nani. Her dark eyes widened and with a thrill of panic he rushed to pass her.

"Link-"

"Please, forget about it, I don't want to talk about it."

He scrambled up his ladder, tripping a few times over his blankets. In his room he retreated to his mattress where he curled up in a lump. The last thing he saw before the darkness of his quilted cave covered his view was the snow outside reaching half way up the barn, and even the sturdy pine seemed flattened by snow.

The attic door opened and he tensed. Feet slapped against the floor.

"Link?"

He felt her weight sink in the mattress on his side. He felt pathetic. He just had to act like a five year old to the first girl he took the initiative to kiss. Some manly man he was.

"Link, are we going to freeze?"

"I don't know." he said, hoping the hot air from his breath would bring feeling back to his nose. "Probably."

She fell quiet. The stillness of the air was deafening compared to the howling winds of the night before. It was as though the very sound had been frozen still. Even through his several layers of blanket he could feel the cold reaching fingers to him.

After a few minutes he began to hear chattering, but it wasn't him.

"Nani, you should go downstairs by the fire. I can hear your teeth."

"I'm fine."

"You're freezing."

"We're all freezing."

He clenched his eyes closed. Yes, they were, and it was all his fault. Shadow died for his mistake. And if the Snow Maiden wasn't murdered by him, whatever had changed in her heart to cause this deathly freeze was because of him. The village would have been better off without him coming. The worst part was the look he had seen on Shadow's face when facing the whirlwind of snow. No one could have such love and tenderness on their face without having a soul.

Question was, how had someone like Ganon created a unique soul? He didn't think of himself as a wizard or anything, but the general belief was that the power to create souls lay solely with Farore, goddess of courage. It was part of every legend of Hyrule he had heard: Din created the land, Nayru the laws of nature, and Farore the living souls that would uphold that law and live upon the land.

Nani leaned into him, breaking him out of his thoughts. He could feel her head shivering through his blankets. His embarrassment was dashed away with concern and without thinking he opened up his blankets. To his surprise she fell into his embrace, throwing her own blankets ontop of them and curling up against his chest. It took him a full minute to think again. Talk about moving quick. His heart started speeding up a notch. Heat flooded his limbs as he caught a whiff of her sweet smell. Could this possibly mean she had forgiven him? Maybe even-

"Please, don't take this as anything," she said against his neck, "I'm just so cold."

The hopeful bubble in his chest deflated.

"I won't."

The awkward quiet returned. The cold fingers retreated from their combined heat and he could almost pretend that the blankets were a magical force field that made everything outside of them irrelevant and nonexistent. Sighing, he pressed his face against her hair. It was as soft as he had imagined.

"I want to apologize for my actions earlier. That was uncalled for." he said.

She didn't say anything, though her shivering was slowly subsiding.

"Why did you come up here? Your family is enjoying the fire downstairs. You'd be more comfortable down there."

"Do you like me?"

He blanched. "What?"

"Do you like me? Like...love me?" she shifted nervously. "You did kiss me. Please tell the truth."

Of course he'd tell her the truth, he'd only always want to tell her the truth. But the question hit him like a wall to the face. The answer should have been obvious, and yet it wasn't. He hardly knew Nani. He had only been here for a week. Why he had kissed her he had been wondering all night. All he could remember was the yearning to know deep within her, to see the story that was behind that promising smile. He remembered being drawn by her wisdom, which felt so much more down to earth than Zelda's had ever been. Her quiet demeanor reminded him of his own when he had first left the Kokiri forest, and he thought he could understand her. But really, if he thought about it, what did he know about her?

In all reality, it just didn't make sense for him to love her, so it couldn't be love. It just couldn't be.

"I don't know." he said.

She let out a shaking breath and drew into herself. He could feel her making a move to leave, but he tightened his arms around her.

"But I do know I want to know you," he said earnestly, "I want to know your best memory, your favorite food, your favorite games, hobbies, color, weather, shoes, flowers," he took a deep breath of her smell and knew he could smell that for hours without it growing old, "your worries, your past, your fears...Nani, I don't know yet if I'm in love. I don't even know if I know what love is. But I do know that I want you to be happy and I am so, so very sorry for making your night uncomfortable and pushing myself on you like that. That was horrible of me. I will never do that again."

She held still, as though thinking hard. Eventually, she seemed to make up her mind and relaxed against his chest with a sigh. He lost his breath as she lifted up her nose to nuzzle against his neck. Such a simple move did so many complex things to him.

"I just was afraid," she said.

"Of what?"

"That you were running off a whim and were, well, going to just use me or something."

He was horrified. "Nani, never. I would never do that to anyone."

"But I've read of it before, even in heroes." she held to him tighter. "They can have any girl they want, so they get rid of stress or have a nice night with whatever girl happens to throw herself at them."

He couldn't help but chuckle. "That's funny, because most of my life I've been terrified of women."

Her head rotated under his chin and he could feel her lashes against his jaw line. "Why?"

"Well, for one I was raised with children that never grew up. Adult stuff, including women, sort of hit me in the face and I just barely got use to the fact that people don't come from trees." he felt himself blush. "I mean, the Kokiri come from trees, that is. There was also this girl named Ruto I met once as a kid. She had something I needed very, very badly..."

! #$^$! #$#$%$#

She woke up not sure of anything. Snow surrounded her, lit with warm firelight. A silence pressed in on her senses. No snowflakes fluttered textures to her, no wind murmured to her, and for the first time she could truly feel the cold leaking in from outside. Groaning, she moved to get up and found herself able to move without pain. A rough blanket covered her form. Beneath it she saw a bandaged wrapped about her waist, dyed red, but not by blood.

The other thing that she noticed was that she was naked.

She clung to her blanket and blinked the fuzz from her eyes. The middle aged man sat crouched on the other side of the fire, polishing a beautiful brass horn in his hands. At his feet was the dark man, pale as snow itself.

"What did you do?"

"Just bandaged you up." he said softly. "Your clothes melted when you came near to the fire. I know now you are no ordinary girl, which is a pity," he turned the horn over to get to the other side, "you look so much like my lost daughter. But, even if you were normal, you couldn't be her."

"Your daughter?"

He smiled, a tender thing through his gruff beard and various scarves. "Yes. Got lost in a summer snow storm, she did. Her name was Rosy."

"Why couldn't I be her? I mean, besides the...not normal part."

The older man tapped his head with the horn. "She was a ginger."

"Ah." she said softly, curling up deeper into her blankets. She could feel her hair wilting against her cheek. Her own skin felt flushed with heat from the fire, but she liked it, even as it burned her. She wanted to crawl over to the dark boy, but was afraid of getting any closer to the instrument man. The last thing she remembered was the older man telling her he was dead, or close to it. She tried not to think about it and nuzzled her mouth and nose into her arms. The icy coldness from outside pressed in deeper. Her companion across the fire shuddered along with the flames.

"Never been in cold like this," he said, "and my wood stores are just about out. This is the last of it." he sighed and put down his horn. "I'm afraid I've done all I can for you and your friend. That red potion I put on your wound should have healed it by now, rare stuff, that is. Got it to make up for part of the price on a Kokirian fiddle."

She watched the fire play on the brass. A memory in the back of her mind flickered with music. There was something about this man she couldn't place. She feared his music, however. Too often the very thing she loved was used against her. Whatever she was looking for, she'd never know.

He blew off some ash from his horn and stuffed it back into his pack. "I better go. Unlike you, I don't stand a chance against this cold and need to make it to the village."

"Can you take him?" she asked.

He looked down at the pale boy by the fire and shook his head, meeting her gaze with sad eyes that said he understood her feelings more than she knew. It was the sadness the snowflakes sang of him. It must be this lost daughter of his that made him mourn so.

"I'm sorry." he said simply.

She watched as he slung on his pack and retied his scarves around his face. The fire flickered in another wave of cold, struggling to burn.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked. If he died in this cold, it would be her fault too.

"There's a village only about a mile away. I'll keep moving." his eyes crinkled with his hidden smile. "Thank you for your concern, miss."

She had the distinct impression then that he knew she was the cause of this cold, and yet he didn't blame her, but accepted it. The sensation was so peculiar she couldn't take her eyes off him as he crawled out of the cave and into the wasteland outside. How could he understand her so easily?

Once his dark boots vanished from her view, she crawled over to the boy on the floor, letting her blanket drag behind her. She didn't trust herself to touch him, but she curled up next to him, his body inches from her own. She leaned her forehead in so close she could almost pretend to touch him. How nice it would be to touch him-to have warm, friendly, human touch. It would be like a kind fire, she thought. Oh, to just be caressed by such warmness.

But he wasn't warm anymore.

She trembled.

"I'm sorry." Her throat hurt. "I'm sorry."

Icy water trickled past the bridge of her nose and down her cheek to the cave floor. His body turned to nothing but shadow back lighted by the fire in her blurring vision. She apologized over and over, not knowing what else to say.

The fire fluttered. She feared the cold outside. She didn't want to be with the snow anymore. She didn't want to be cold anymore. She wanted to be warm so she could make him warm again. She had done so many things wrong. If only there was something else other than winter out there for her, but there wasn't.

Soon her apologies grew incoherent. It was all her fault. She didn't want to live anymore. No one wanted winter anyways.

Figuring she had ruined things as much as she could already, she leaned up just enough to bring her face to his and kissed his lips so softly she barely felt them at all. Cold tears dripped onto his cheeks and she quickly brushed them away from his fire-warmed cheeks.

His purple eyelids quivered. She sniffed. It couldn't be. He had been frozen.

Clouded eyes looked up at her. His lips cracked slightly as he tried to smile.

"Gods, you're beautiful."

She couldn't breathe. She could only stare. His groan snapped her back and she scrambled back. If he was alive-if he was alive-she couldn't be near him, she couldn't touch him, she'd freeze him!

And at that a more horrifying thought occurred to her. As he coughed weakly she scrambled out the mouth of the cave.

"Hey!" she shouted. "HEY!"

Dang it, why didn't she seem to know anybody's freaking name!

But as far as she could see, the older man had vanished. A strange haze of cold lay over the land that made mirages in the distance. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears.

"What you 'hey'ing to?" croaked from inside.

She slipped back in just enough to see him. "The man who saved us, he needs to take you back-the cold-" she choked on a sob she didn't feel coming. "The cold, it's so cold, and your alive-_how the hell are you alive_?"

He gave her a strange, dopey smile and opened his mouth just to cough instead. It was then that she noted that his white face was blotched with red she hadn't seen in the rosy firelight. Her panic grew. The excitement and hope that had hit her before on his awakening now only teased her. She rushed to the fire, flapping her hands in distress, trying to decipher how long the firewood there would last.

It was then she realized she had left her blanket by him. She went ramrod straight. No wonder he was giving her that stupid smile.

She couldn't feel her stomach anymore.

Right as she was wondering how this had gone from horrible to absolute nightmare, he mumbled something and turned his head away, eyes drooping. She hesitated, then mentally smacked herself. How could she be worried about her dignity and minor safety when his life was trickling away as she stood there?

He made no sign of noticing her when she went to pick up her blanket. She paced a bit more in fruitless attempts to figure out what to do and eventually sat back down next to him to fret.

"_Break it hard, such a pity, such a pity,_" he muttered. "_Dirty city, such a pity._" he took a deep shuddering breath and looked up at her. "Is there an extra blanket? Damn, it's cold."

She paused. Then, with trembling arms, she took off her only covering and laid it over him. He watched, though this time he didn't smile. She scooted away, arms wrapped about her breasts and legs glued together.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"I already told you," she said quietly, "I don't know."

"How 'bout Snow? Thought about that one for myself once."

"That's a stupid name."

He chuckled. "I know. Any name you had wouldn't be stupid though. You could be Snow, I could be Mud."

She wrinkled her nose, though inside she just wanted to cry. His delirium only made it worse. If he didn't die from cold, he may just die from illness. "Mud? Is that really the names you could come up with?"

"I want it to be special." he sniffed and groaned. "Agh, my head. Stupid church is so flipping cold, I want my money back."

Maybe, if she covered him with the blankets and hurried she could make it to the village, but it had taken most of her strength just to drag him the few meters to this cave. How could she carry him a whole mile?

"Can you walk?" she asked.

He looked vaguely offended. "'Course I can." He slowly sat up and moved to his knees. The moment he got there, however, he wobbled and tipped towards the fire. She leaped forward and caught him, nearly crying out at how close to the flames she had gotten, even though they never got close to touching her. She had never been too tolerant of heat. With her holding on to the tops of his arms to keep him stable, his eyes naturally fell on her chest.

"Huh," he said, as though examining the weather, "you're naked."

She nearly dropped him back into the fire. Instead she aimed him away from it before backing away herself, hot and horrified and scared all over. Men did awful things when the snow melted. Such awful, terrible things. But if he couldn't stand, surely she would be okay?

That and the thought she couldn't leave him to die were the only things keeping her from fleeing.

Maybe she could go to the village and bring someone back who could help him. But who would help her? Who could she trust when she trusted no one?

The boy on the floor took a shallow, rattling breath. "There were these skeletons everywhere. You have to be sure to cut through their femurs or they'll just get back up, you know? Skeletons. That knight, there was this knight there..." he flopped his flushed face towards her. "You're really pretty, you know that? I hope you know I wouldn't've gone into that tent anyways. You're prettier than anyone."

Her own blush burned her face, and it hurt. She wasn't built for this much heat. "What are you talking about?"

"The tent," he croaked, "where girls go to take off their clothes, they wanted me to go in, but I wouldn't. I knew you wouldn't like it. And I'm notta perv." he coughed. "Girls are special. You're special. Sex special." he gave her another goopy smile. "Hmmm, yeah. Sex."

She stared at him. She didn't know a fever could do this to people. Biting her lip, she made up her mind and stood up, doing her best to angle her body away from him.

"I'm going for help," she told him, "you stay here." Not like he could go anywhere.

His glassy eyes drooped with disappointment along with his cracked, and now slightly bleeding, mouth. "But it's cold. Don't you want to cuddle?"

Now she was blushing all over. "Trust me, you don't want to cuddle with me if you're trying to get warmer. I'll just make it worse."

"No, you're pretty and soft, it would be so nice." he hummed to himself, then coughed again. He groaned, flopped his head to the other side, and promptly passed out.


	11. Run, Guilt, and Stories

**As always, homies, never underestimate the power of stories, forgive me for my mistakes as this is a rough draft (because I could never publish if I actually tapped into my crazy OCD editing pow'ress), review, eat snacks, never argue that my baby isn't cute even if you've never seen him, and by golly, enjoy. **

**Aw man, my homemade bread is just about done and I can SMELL IT! *squeal***

Chapter 11: Run, Guilt, and Stories

The snow started up again. Link and Nani watched it from within their blankets, shivering with the rest of the family they had long ago joined. Now and then the fire gasped for air itself when cold winds billowed down its chimney. No one talked, because what was there to talk about? At some point Nani took down her book and started reading again. Kane and Jewels looked out morosely from their quilted hoods.

"What did we have for lunch today?" asked Kane. "I can't seem to remember."

"Those soup leftovers."

"That was today? All right then, what's for dinner?"

"You're hungry already?"

"Not really."

Link thought he heard something beneath the din of the storm. He perked up. Just on the edge of his hearing, someone was knocking. He hesitated. Opening the door could let out precious heat they couldn't afford, but what if it was someone caught in the storm? He got up.

Snowflakes tumbled in the moment he cracked open the door. The family protested behind him, asking who it was, and at first he saw nobody. Then he made out the Snow Maiden's outline, her whiteness blending in with the snow. Out of instinct he went to shut the door.

"No! Wait!" she cried, and he paused. "You're the only person I thought to come to, he told me you were a hero."

"Who told you that?"

"The guy who was with you-the dark man-he looks just like you."

Link could feel his skin tightening with the cold and closed the door even more. "I don't know how much I can help you, this storm could kill anyone that steps out."

The Snow Maiden fell silent, a look of devastation on her face. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Gradually the winds stopped moaning, the flurries slowed to a light trickle, and the air cleared. He could see the rest of the village, now, half buried in snow. He gaped and opened up the door a fraction more as she opened her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said, "It's just really scary right now, and I'm not use to having to..." she bit her lip.

Even as he watched, the snow stopped falling completely and the air became just a little less biting. Though he found he could breathe again, the clouds remained, casting a gray pallor over the land.

"So you two weren't planning to..."

"Planning to what?" she asked.

Looking at her frightened face and the way her knuckles showed white as she clutched her arms, he changed his mind.

"What do you need?" he asked.

"Not me, him, and if we don't worry-I mean, hurry, he's going to die! I don't know how long the fire's going to last."

His stomach leapt. "Shadow?"

"Is that his name? The man who looks like you?"

"It's all he has right now, hold on, let me get my boots on."

Inside he was met by curious stares and a gaping Kane.

"Is that who I think it is?" he asked.

"Think who is?" asked Jewels.

"Who's at the door?" asked Carrol. "Are they in trouble? Invite them in already!"

"Uh, that'd be a bad idea." Link said as he stuffed on his boots.

Kane gave a gasp in-between unbelievably excited and nausea. "So it is her."

Nani watched Link bundle himself up like a mountain explorer with wide eyes. He knew that she knew as well.

"Who's who?" demanded Carrol. "Why do I get the feeling there's a secret here?"

The mayor sighed. "Calm down, love, Link is already going to help and there's no point throwing knives."

"I'm not throwing knives!"

"Figure of speech."

Kane looked a bit green and bit his lip. "Tell her I'm sorry, would you? Actually, don't tell her I'm here at all, don't mention me."

"Tell _who?_"

And Link left, shutting the door tight behind him. The Snow Maiden waited anxiously in the snow before him.

"Do you have a horse?" she asked desperately.

"Uh, yes and no."

"Here?"

"That's the no part."

"Then we must hurry. The winds can carry me, but I need you to run."

Before he could say anything to this she went off at a dead sprint, long legs leaping so high over the flat snow that her feet hardly landed at all. A swirl of winter wind disturbed snowflakes in her trail.

He left the snowshoes hanging by the door. It was only when his foot sank through five feet of snow did he realize his stupid mistake. Soon he had snow up to his chest.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Wait!"

She paused in the distance and turned around. Her face fell at the sight of him and she hurried back.

"I forgot you people are all heavy. Here." she reached out her hand, then hesitated and withdrew it. "On second thought, never mind. Let me try something." She took a breath, lowered her eyes, and flattened her hands to the snow beneath him. Instantly he could feel himself rising to the top. Once out, the snow hardened beneath his feet without turning to ice. He took a few tentative steps, but didn't fall through.

They ran, her with that strange almost equine grace and him like he had across the expanse of Hyrule Field. Behind them the storm closed back in on the village and he could feel the cold nibbling at his heels.

"Does this cold have to do with your fear?" he panted.

"I dunno, I suppose?"

"So the weather reacts to your emotions."

"Didn't I already say that? And sometimes it just does what it wants, why does that matter?"

He didn't know why it mattered. In any case, he couldn't believe she wasn't freezing him on the spot for what he did to her, despite the apparent danger to Shadow's life.

The cold closed in the farther they ran. The motions was all that kept him warm, and even the sweat on his forehead vanished as his body scavenged all the heat it could keep. Not once did the Snow Maiden break stride or seem out of breath. At one point he had to beg her to slow down. Always he wondered what he would do once he reached Shadow. The man must be freezing to death-again (the idiot). Even if he did the unthinkable and stripped down to share body heat, not only would Shadow castrate him once he woke up, but it may be even too late for that.

Yet even more important, what would the Snow Maiden do if Shadow didn't make it?

When at last she stopped at a snow cave set into a mountainside perhaps a mile or two from the village, the air had turned icy and his throat burned cold with it. He could feel his body shivering despite the exertion.

"There, there!" she pointed at the hole, her face wan. "I can't go in, I'll just make it colder."

He hesitated at the hole.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

"I just want to make something clear."

"Then make it clear later!" her voice broke. "Please, he's going to die!"

"And what if he does?"

She stood like a statue of white ice, blue eyes big enough to swallow the snowy world. Her lips trembled.

"Why do you say such a thing?"

"Because I may not be able to help him-no one might be able to help him, and I want to know what you'll do. There's a lot of people in that village that are trapped by this winter and there have already been a few that have died."

She flinched. "Died?"

"Yes. Frozen to death, crushed by snow, felled by illness. I need to know that if Shadow dies you're not going to kill them all. I'm going to do all I can but it's not fair for them to die as well."

She started to shake like a reed in the wind. "I...I killed them?"

He stared at her. "Didn't you say this village deserved to freeze?"

"I...didn't think, I didn't mean..."

"What do you mean you didn't think? What did you think happened to people when they freeze?" he adjusted his cloak about him. "I'm going in. If Shadow's dead, I beg you to leave, run as fast as you can, something. You're good at that. Maybe if you get far away enough it will save the village."

He met her gaze and she met his. There was something broken in those ice blue eyes. She dropped her hands from her chest.

"I will." she said. "Just, please, do what you can. He doesn't deserve this, and he needs to know," she turned away, "he needs to know that inside him, he's actually very good."

Link wasn't entirely sure what she meant by that, but he slid down the entrance. Inside the cave a fire, half smothered with cold, struggled to burn next to a dark form.

"Shadow?" he shook him. When he didn't respond he slapped his cheeks. "Hey, soulless idiot who has a fascination with suicide, wake up!"

The pale lips buzzed. Link leaned in quickly.

"Bastard." they said.

For the first time it made him smile.

"Time to get up, jerk. There's a pretty girl outside waiting for you."

He tugged on his arms, rubbed his shoulders roughly, kicked his boots, but Shadow did not respond again. An unnatural color had flushed into his face. Link felt his insides fall out and continued rubbing him. For the first time in his life he wanted Shadow to look up at him and call him gay or tell him to stop molesting him when it was obvious he was trying to save his sorry ass.

It became apparent something had changed about the man before him. The limpness in his arms seemed different. There was something just too quiet, too surreal, about Shadow. Trepidation growing, Link leaned his wrist to Shadow's mouth. He felt no breath. Angrily, he ripped open Shadow's tunic with a knife in his boot and pressed his ear to his chest. A chill like needles prickled his skin when he heard nothing but emptiness. He listened for an eternity, begging for something, before numbly pulling back.

So it was done now. No more ambushes. No more death threats.

Oddly enough, he didn't feel happy.

He didn't have to say anything to the Snow Maiden when he crawled back outside. She took one look at his face and fell blank. The wind fell still once more and awful cold closed in worse than ever. He could hear his clothes crackling as they froze.

"I'll leave." she said softly.

"I'm sorry." he said. "Though, I'm not even sure why, you didn't even know him."

"Do you need to ask?"

"No."

"Can I...take him with me?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I want to find a good place for him to rest, and I can't hurt him now."

"Yes," he said, because 'well, no one else wants him,' seemed coarse and hollow. He suddenly ached so bad it hurt. He never knew Shadow either. He was much more than his reflection, but how and why, he'd now never know. All his opinions of him he thought of as just fact now seemed demeaning and cruelly unfair. Had he, in his hatred for his shadow, become something worse?

Link dragged out Shadow to spare her from getting near to the fire. He laid him in the snow at her feet, in pain from the sheer cold that radiated from her. The broken smile on her face took his breath away. Din, she was beautiful. Could she really be evil? Was she ever? And why such a smile for someone like Shadow?

It made him think of Nani, whom he too barely knew, and yet he imagined a hell-like world where she didn't exist.

"About before," he blurted out. "I judged you wrong. I'm sorry."

"No, you judged me right. If there were innocents dying at my hands, you were right in trying to save them. I would've done the same."

"But you're not evil."

"What is evil?"

He thought of Nani. "It's something hateful and harmful and loves holding grudges more than kindness." Then he thought over what he said and was confused. Hadn't that been Shadow? Hadn't that been the Snow Maiden? Hadn't that been him at one point?

She seemed to read his mind. "Ah." she said. "Then I guess there's only one thing to do."

"What?"

"Let it go," she looked out over the cold expanse to the village barely visible in the distance, "and change."

Then the Snow Maiden kneeled down, wrapped her arms tenderly about Shadow's body, and vanished in a moonlit whirlwind of snow and ice.

#$%&%#%$#$

Dane loved his mother's largest quilt. It was big enough to swallow him and his sisters whole and made great nests in the rain, like now. The storm filled the house with a calm, pattering music. Samantha and Coral pressed in on both his sides, Samantha more in front of him than beside him.

"She laid there all pale and not breathing. The evil witch had done her deed, and Snow White was now dead. The witch left, happy in the knowledge she was now the fairest in the land." she said.

"Dead?" Coral's usually balled up cheeks had gone slack. "Like, dead dead? But what about the prince!"

Dane rolled his eyes. "Is that all you care about? She didn't listen to the dwarves! Good riddance! That's why you should listen to dad next time when he says not to play at the deep end of the spring."

"But you do all the time!"

"That's because I'm bigger, pant-sniffer."

"No, it's because you never listen to Daddy!"

Samantha sighed and tucked back her long brown hair. "Will you guys hush? I'm not finished with the story."

"Dane's being an idiot, though."

"I'm not an idiot!"

His older sister sighed again and continued anyways,

"When the dwarves came home it was to find Snow White fallen on the floor without breath. They tried everything they could think of to bring her back, but nothing worked. They cried and wailed and for hours they just stood over Snow White, wishing the witch had never existed."

"That's so sad!"

"Quiet, Coral!"

"Zit-licker..."

"Eventually they took up their tools and crafted a beautiful tomb made out of precious metals and jewels with a magical glass covering, because they just couldn't bring themselves to bury her beauty in the ground. This way, the world could see her beauty forever. Seasons passed and her beauty never faded. She could've looked as though she were just asleep, and everyday a dwarf would come visit to plant a flower or care for the coffin."

"Wait a second," Dane scooted his butt deeper into the blanket, as though that made him look wiser, "she was still beautiful? But she was dead, wasn't she suppose to get all decayed and stuff?"

Coral put her little hands to her face in horror.

"Weren't you listening?" said Samantha. "I said it was a _magical_ glass covering."

"How did dwarves get the magic to prevent corpses from decaying?"

"Stop it!" wailed Coral. "Why can't we ever just hear a story without you questioning it?"

His sisters glared at him. Dane didn't feel so smart anymore and he bowed his head in surrender.

"Fine. What happens next?" he grumbled.

"The prince comes along, sees her, and thinks she's so beautiful that he asks the dwarves to lift the glass case so he can just kiss her."

"But wasn't he sad?" asked Coral.

"Of course he was. That's why he kissed her. He was so sad that she was gone that he wanted to express how much he loved her. That's why people kiss each other."

Coral's face brightened. "You kiss me!" then it darkened as she looked at her brother. "Dane never kisses me."

"That's because men don't kiss their sisters."

"Yeah right, you're just mean." she looked back to Samantha. "She wakes up then, doesn't she?"

Samantha smiled fondly at her siblings. "Yep. Opens her eyes, coughs out the piece of the apple that was choking her, and smiles at the prince, and all the dwarves can't believe their eyes. The prince celebrates as well and asks her to marry him right then and there. With the permission of the dwarves he sweeps her up onto his horse and rides off into the sunset, and," she waited.

"They lived happily ever after!" crowed Coral.

They both looked at Dane expectantly. He had his arms folded across his chest.

"What?" he asked.

"No snide remarks?" Samantha asked. "No questions?"

"I thought you were sick of me doing that?"

"Yeah, during the story," said Coral, "but we both know you'll explode and die if we don't let you get it all out."

"I won't die." he considered his sisters to make sure the air was clear, then started warily, "first, how can his kiss wake her up like that? She hadn't been breathing for over a year, at least."

"Magic," said Samantha simply. "And remember she was under an enchanted death that the witch read could only be broken by a true love's kiss."

"But that's the thing! She only met the prince, what, once? Maybe twice? How could they even know each other enough to have true love?"

"True love is unconditional, and it's something that is given, not earned. I'm not saying that you should marry someone you just met off the bat, of course that's a bad idea! But in any kind of relationship you need to choose to love someone despite their shortcomings and forgive them for the wrongs they did to you. That's what love does. Selfishness does the other."

"But still," insisted Dane, still confused, "they've had to at least known each other enough to give that true love! It's not like I can just walk around and throw unconditional mushiness at a tree or something."

"The story doesn't tell you everything," said Coral impatiently. "They probably saw a puzzle piece in the other."

"A puzzle piece? Coral, do you even know what we're talking about?"

She pouted at him. "Of course I do! She had one piece of the puzzle and she could see the other piece in him! They were a whole puzzle!"

"I think she means they could see a piece of themselves that they didn't have in the other person and vice versa." Samantha looked down at the youngest curiously. "Is that it?"

"I guess so."

Their mother walked into the room then. She shook wet hair out of her face, a basket of chicken eggs on her arms.

"There you three are." she put the basket on the table. "Have any of you finished chores today?"

In unison they protested about the rain and cold and how it would've been cruel to have to muck stables and the like in the wet. She tittered in disapproval.

"If I can do it, you can too. Don't you think you would mind standing in your own muck just because it was raining? Now get to those horses."

Reluctantly, they all extracted themselves from mother's biggest quilt and meandered to the door where their shoes were. As they tied cloaks about their necks and stepped out into the rain, another thought occurred to Dane.

"Samantha, why does true love break the curse anyways? It's in a lot of stories."

"Easy," she said, "hate poisons a soul and kills a heart's ability to love. True love, one that's self-sacrificing and unconditional, is the only thing that can save someone from that."

"Huh."

Mud splattered up their pant legs and Coral trotted on ahead, skipping into puddles and singing at the rain she had just a moment ago grumbled against with the rest of her siblings. Dane smiled at this. For some reason, it made him feel a bit guilty that he hadn't kissed Coral since they were very little and she was little more than a baby. She probably really thought he didn't like her, which was retarded.

He opened the barn door for Samantha and they shook off their cloaks inside. Another thought hit him.

"How the heck do you know these things?"

"It's called reading. Not to mention I'm just stinking smart." she smirked at him.

He snorted. "Yeah, right."

But of course, they both knew he didn't mean it.


	12. Sun, Ginger, and Samantha

**I finished it. :3 I don't know if the endings the best, but it should make up for all the sad feelings I inflicted on you, at least. **

**Please, if you haven't reviewed before, at least review now and tell me what you think! I hope you enjoyed this story bunches of oats style and why not hang around! I'll be writing another story as I always do, with updates once a week (or even more often than that), and I love telling stories. ^.^ **

**Also on the whole 'let it go' thing in the last chapter, I didn't mean to quote Frozen. It's a great movie and all, but I don't love it THAT much. This story isn't based off of Frozen, it's based off of something more cooler than that-a really, really old Russian story. **

**Pika, ya'll**

Chapter 12: Sun, Ginger, and Samantha

The sun came out.

It had to be one of the strangest experiences Link ever had. He and the family stepped out of the house to early summer temperatures, but with snow glittering all over the ground. Families were digging themselves out of their houses and children played in the snow that, for once, stuck enough to make perfect snowballs rather than being too dry and cold for anything other than misery. Jewels and Kane trotted out cheering at the sunlight. A few young men ran up to Kane and then, all at once, they started tearing off their shirts to expose their chests to the sun for the first time in three years. Even Carrol couldn't disapprove. Her and her husband, the mayor, took each other hands and left to check up on the rest of the village, leaving Nani and Link on the porch. Nani glanced at him.

"Did she die?" she asked.

"Wow, you could win an award for bluntness."

She gave him a look beneath her eyebrows that said, 'what else did you expect me to say?' He sighed.

"She left."

She kept looking at him in that piercing way of hers and he shifted uncomfortably. Kane and his friends had begun swinging their shirts above their heads to the giggles of girls. A branch of the pine tree by the barn broke free of the snow with a 'thuwamp'.

"She didn't realize she was killing people, and when Shadow died she just left. She said something about changing and I think...I think we were all in the wrong. It's starting to look like some weird misunderstanding, because she was just looking for something and was hurt while she was vulnerable. What's even weirder to think is that maybe Shadow was the least wrong of us all yesterday. All he wanted to do was help a girl he loved." he blinked. "It's still hard for me to wrap my mind around."

"So he loved her?"

"Yeah. I can't think of anything else it could be." he let her see his confusion. "How could he love her? He's only known her for as long as we have known..." then he stopped, feeling foolish. She smiled at him.

"Sounds like a question someone else asked me a long time ago."

"Who?"

"I..." her gaze grew distant as she watched her adoptive family. "I can't quite remember. I don't remember a lot before the good mayor and his family. I don't even remember what my old name was."

He perked up. "Do you know what happened to your original family?"

Her eyebrows furrowed and she said nothing. Link decided to leave it at that. With Nani, silence was rarely ever uncomfortable. He let it be for a few moments as they watched the happy villagers. Snow slipped off of roofs and gave off steam wherever it was. Above them the sky was a beautiful, tearing blue. All around he could hear more 'thuwumps' as pines slipped out of their winter loads. It was finally over.

Several villagers came over then, beaming at him. He felt his insides curl as he realized what they were there for.

"Thank you," they said. The tears in their eyes wrenched at him. "Thank you!"

"The king wasn't wrong to send you!"

"I never thought a real hero would save us, I thought we would all freeze!"

"We can live now."

They gushed similar comments before Link had to put up his hands.

"Stop, please," he said with a grimace, "it wasn't because of me."

They fell blank, confused. He dropped his head.

"It was Shadow, my brother. He..." how could he say that he had died and that's why they were saved? How could he give justice to it without sounding awfully blunt? Especially after calling him brother, for that was what he had been, he realized. A brother of the soul. They do say you fight with your siblings the most. Didn't much matter in the end that he was made of dark magic, but the thoughts confused him so utterly he couldn't speak. He hated Shadow. He hated him so much.

Unlike with Nani, the silence that came over the villagers was not comfortable at all. Without another word, he strode back into the house. He didn't come back to their calls but headed to the ladder. It was strange how his lent room had become a haven in such a short time.

Nani didn't come up until an hour later to find him staring at a wall with his boots still on.

"I wanted to give you time to think." she said. "I told them what happened. They didn't understand. They never knew that it was a girl who had caused it all."

He shrugged. "It's to be expected."

In her soft way she lighted next to him and waited. She was good at that. Only made sense for someone who had so much practice in listening. But he didn't know what to say.

So they just sat there and watched water drip past the window and felt the warm sun from the little attic window. At one point he gave a shuddering breath and she wrapped her arms about his waist.

!%#^$# !#$%

Walls of sky blue ice glittered around her and she breathed in the air. This was where it all ended up, then. Here, in this bubble of ice she had made for a tomb. Sun filtered through in crystalline beams, rippled and soft. The young man, Shadow, lay before her, pale and cold. His hair looked to be frosting over for its usual black had lightened to a muddy brown. Now and then she'd brush her hand against his cheek and allow herself to weep. She had to stay away from everyone. She couldn't be by people, for she couldn't hurt anymore, both inside and upon others. It felt like she had to let go of Shadow as well in this beautiful bubble she had made for him, but she had wanted to know him so badly. She had wanted to be with him-wanted to be warm.

"I'm sorry," she kept saying, "I'm sorry." And then she would kiss him again. At least she had that comfort.

What was she going to do now? What kind of life was she going to lead, wandering around alone in the snow? The answer to that was obvious: nothing, for no one wanted cold and ice to take over their summer. Winter was unloved and, at most, tolerated. She could be no use to anyone.

But why? Why had she been made this way?

She started to shiver and pulled back, confused. She had never shivered from cold before. She had seen others do it before, but never had she felt it. It felt nice, in some bizarre way, to feel cold.

Then the strangest thing of all happened.

A drop of water appeared on her nose.

Bewildered, she wiped at her face just to feel another drop fall on her head. Her hair felt damp, which it only ever did if she were by a fire. When the third drop fell she started to panic. She was melting! But there was no fire, how could this be!

Not knowing what else to do she reached for Shadow and clutched him to her chest. She could feel water all along her skin now, and it was freezing. It hurt. How could cold hurt? She was dying, she had to be!

But what was it like to die? Was dying nice or awful-what would happen next!? Would it hurt? Was she sick? Then again...she had no purpose being alive. At least this way she could be with Shadow, but was she like everyone else when they died? Would there be kind goddesses waiting to take her back? Or would they hold all that she had done against her?

She whimpered as the ice ceiling started raining on her. Near the entrance she had frozen up on entering the ice thinned enough that outside she could see the snow steaming and fogging up the glass-like wall.

"What's going on? It's so cold, what's going on?" her high voice echoed off the walls.

"I dunno, but could you let go? You're getting me all wet."

She froze, then pushed him away and leapt back.

"Oh no, you're not doing this to me again," she cried, "you're dead! Dead, dead, dead, and no way am I cuddling with you having sex!"

Shadow started to laugh face first into the melting ice. Taking his time he eased his arms underneath him and pushed himself up, still hooting with mirth. She wasn't just seeing things, now, his hair had turned brown and his dark clothes looked more ragged than before. He sat up, took off his long hat, swiped the wet hair from his face, and smiled at her.

He wasn't Shadow anymore. The face was someone else. Where there had once been coal black eyes, bright green hazel looked back at her. His lips were thin, his chin proud, and his cheek bones prominent, where before it had been the soft, boyish features of the hero.

"Who ever said anything about having sex?"

She gawked at him. After laughing some more he started to gawk at her too.

"Your hair!" he cried.

With a shaking hand she reached up and pulled down a lock of her wet hair. Where once it had been whiter than snow, now it had faded to a burnished copper.

"I'm a...I'm a...what in the world-" then she realized she was naked again and started hyperventilating. Shadow-or what once had been Shadow-was trying not to laugh again while also looking somewhat panicked.

"Breathe, breathe, there's nothing wrong with being a red-head-"

"Red? Wait, what-?" then a time when she had danced for a man who sold instruments started trickling in and she stopped breathing all together. Now Shadow had no problem with not laughing.

"Nonono, breathe, breathe!"

And then she passed out.

!#$!%$! #%$#^

Somehow, Nani had coaxed him back outside after dinner in the name of digging out houses with the rest of the village. Kane had settled down and was shoveling along with the rest of them, but he had yet to put his shirt on, and his once pasty skin now glowed bright red. Behind him a man who had been caught in the blizzard the night before played a beautiful brass trumpet among the village children, who danced and laughed in the new warmth. Link had yet to talk to the newcomer. He felt anti-social as it was.

"I think that guys a merchant." said Kane as he threw a glance over his sunburnt shoulder.

"Hmm." said Link. Nani heaved snow behind her, the sunlight playing on the gloss of her ponytail.

"That's all you're going to say? Don't you think it's weird?" asked Kane.

"Weird?"

"Well, yeah! What kind of music merchant comes all the way out here when everyone knows we're as poor as dirt and snowed in."

"Aren't you guys really good at the sales thing? Cheese and cow-hide and all that?"

"Sure, but," Kane dug his shovel into the snow, "why would he come out here to sell instruments for stuff like cheese? Don't get me wrong, our cheese is stupendous, but really."

The sound of the horn peeked at a climax of a playful jig and the children cheered. Nani smiled, and the sight warmed Link just a little bit more. Gods, there was really something about this girl. Then it hit him: the winter had ended the curse was broken. There was no other reason for him to be there now.

He couldn't help but notice the color in her cheeks brought on by exertion. Her lips were red with cold and heat.

He just stopped himself from saying something stupid in front of Kane. No one in the family knew about them yet. Din, he didn't even know entirely what had grown between them. All he knew was that at the thought of having to leave his heart nearly fainted, and it wasn't because of any fondness towards these grubby houses and stale bread.

But this was her home. He couldn't ask her to leave her family just to be with a man she barely knew. And he had to report to Zelda and had obligations to so many, not to mention he had no clue what he'd do if she did say yes. Would they just travel together? Though all those empty hours just walking along with her sounded heavenly, what could it lead to? What if he found out it wasn't love that he was feeling? Could he send her home? What would her village and family think of her then, leaving for so long to travel with a man?

He then realized he had been standing for a full minute just staring stupidly at the red door they were unearthing from snow. Kane looked at him in concern.

"Hey, you okay?"

He jerked into action. "Oh, yeah. Fine. Just thinking."

Kane's eyebrows rose sympathetically. "It's okay to miss him, you know."

This lost him. "Him?"

"Shadow."

Link said nothing to this. He had been hoping not to fall into that cycle of thought again.

A commotion interrupted the tedium of their shovels and they turned around curiously. A dark figure could be seen approaching the village, carrying someone bundled in a black cloak. A few men had already dropped what they were doing to meet the figure. Link too left his shovel, concern tightening his chest. _Don't tell me these poor folk had been caught out in that death-like freeze_, he thought. The trumpet behind him had fallen silent.

The light of the setting sun laid an amber glow over the land.

When he made out the black clothing, he came to an abrupt halt. It couldn't be...

"Boy, you all right?" asked one of the villagers.

From his distance, he could just make out a familiar quirky smirk on his face.

"I'll be fine, I don't mind the cold. Her on the other hand," he gestured his chin to the woman in his arms, "she's not use to it at all. I've had to convince her she wasn't dying before she'd take my cloak."

Like a babe peaking out of swaddling clothing, the girl in his arms pulled her head back from his shoulder just enough to see who was talking. Then, shyly, she tucked her face back.

But it wasn't the girl who filled him with unreasonable rage.

He stomped the rest of the way.

"You were suppose to be _dead_!" he shouted without thinking.

The villagers flinched. All but Shadow cowed as Link came barreling through. He would have grabbed the idiot and shook him like a dog if it weren't for the prone, bare-foot girl in his arms.

"How dare you come back here!" he yelled. "After all I-after all she-I can't believe I actually felt bad when you weren't dead this whole time!"

"Woa, steady, hero."

"Steady? What am I, a horse now? You think you can lead me around and make me-dammit, I can't believe I actually-" he was so angry he couldn't think what to say. He at least had the frame of mind to not admit that he had cried over Shadow's death.

He then realized the man he was yelling at, though wearing Shadow's clothes, wasn't Shadow at all.

He felt the blood run out of his face.

"You're not..."

The boy smirked. "Actually, I am, and it's good to hear you using your big boy vocabulary again."

Link ogled. The villagers looked from Link to what had to be Shadow, wary for another explosion. While Link stood there thunderstruck with confusion, Shadow went to one of the villagers.

"Can you take her to one of the village women? Preferably someone with access to a warm bath? She doesn't have any shoes."

It was then Link noticed that his arms were shaking. Had he carried her all the way over here from wherever the Snow Maiden had taken him?

When a man went to take the girl from him, though, she clung to Shadow all the harder. Shadow didn't scold her or even appear exasperated, but gazed down at her tenderly.

"It's okay, Rosy. They won't hurt you. I'll be with you the entire time."

She said something in a small voice that only he could hear, and he whispered something back to her. Whatever he said made her let go and she reached down pale, shaking legs to the snow covered ground. Her knees wobbled horribly and she clutched the cloak about her. A few strands of copper hair trickled out from her hood, banishing the growing idea in Link's mind that somehow she could be the Snow Maiden.

As one of the men picked her up bridal style and carried her into the staring village, Shadow followed close behind. Link fell in step behind him. When Link couldn't think of anything to say, Shadow eased a sidelong glance at him, then chuckled.

"It's nice not wanting to kill you anymore." he said.

"So it is you?"

"I said it was, didn't I?"

"But..." Link fidgeted with his gloves, "Farore, what happened to you?" Then with even more confusion, he asked, "_Who_ are you?"

"I'm glad you asked, I'm quite proud of it myself," Shadow winked, "the name's Dane. My real name, that is, and I'm the son of a knight, which is more than what I can say for you. Who are you the son of, a tree?"

Link ignored that jab and continued to wonder. "So, are you saying, you were somebody other than my shadow this entire time?"

"Din, you're thick."

"Well what about the Snow Maiden?" then he looked at the pale, dangling feet of the girl being carried ahead of them. "Oh no, you don't mean-"

"Yep. That's her."

"Gods...and I almost killed her?"

"Yeppers. You're quite the asshole." Shadow, or Dane, said calmly.

"Huh." he blinked. "But, how-?"

"In my educated opinion," Dane ran his hand through his hatless hair, "true love."

Link found himself smiling in amusement, only surprised to hear that his assumption about Shadow's feelings had been right. "True love?" He snorted and Dane glared at him.

"What was that for?"

"You've only known her for a week, even less than that if you consider that most of the time you were lying sick in your bed while she terrorized the village with blizzards."

Dane scowled at him. "True love isn't decided by how well you know a person. It's unconditional love that you choose to give, no matter who-or even what-someone is."

"Woa, when did you turn into the love guru?"

"It's something I heard from my sister once."

"You have a _sister?_"

"Two, actually. Which reminds me," he looked back forward, expression troubled. "Where are they?"

Link, however, backtracked, "But you're saying because you _chose_ to love her, it just happened?" He couldn't help but feel skeptical, though he thought of Nani as he said this.

"It's not just choosing," he said, "and yet it is. Your heart chooses to draw you to them, I guess-that sounds really dumb- and then you decide for yourself whether to love them for their weaknesses as well as their strengths. I mean," he shrugged, "love isn't about loving someone perfect, so why expect someone like that?"

"But what if you get too far with her and find you don't really love her?"

Dane gave him a strange look. "Love is just love, hero. You're starting to sound like a girl, you know that? Besides, why are you so concerned? It's my business."

But he wasn't listening anymore. He didn't really care what Shadow thought about him, even if he did get himself a new name and face, or rather an old name and face. He had just spotted Nani waiting for him a ways a way by the house they had been working at. He wondered whether to take what his once-reflection was saying. But as they neared town, he suddenly discovered he didn't care, because he wanted to believe it. And when he came close enough to see that promising smile of hers, he didn't question it anymore. He loved her. There was nothing more to it.

He didn't want to leave this town without her. If she wanted to stay, he'd stay too. And if it ended up badly, well, it wouldn't be because of him.

Dane was squinting at her when Link started running.

"Samantha?"

But Link only barely heard him. The elation of his epiphany flew him forward. It had been so simple! Why did it take his stupid reflection to make him realize it?

Nani didn't expect what happened next. Link fell upon her, swooping her up into his arms, and kissing her right smack on the mouth.

Kane's jaw dropped to the snow. Plenty of people copied him, including the mayor and his wife at a house across the square.

Behind him Dane froze.

"What was that for?" she asked, giggling with rosy cheeks.

"I just realized I loved you, that's all."

"That was quick." but her eyes had lit up like stars. "I like that."

Then her eyes caught something over her shoulder and her eyebrows furrowed.

"I know him," she muttered. Link put her down and turned to introduce her-

And came face to face with Dane's bright red, furious face. He raised his fists.

"You bastard! That's my sister!"

Link blanched. He didn't even have a moment to spare before he was stumbling back to avoid Dane's flying fists. Nani stared, still with that confused expression on her face. Kane's cheeks twitched as he watched Link evading and scrambling across the snow from Dane's flying fists, looking as though unsure whether to laugh or just be confused.

"Your sister?" Link chocked as he ducked. "How was I suppose to know that?"

"I don't care, you stay away from her!"

"Din, when was the last time you've even seen her?"

Dane didn't answer, throwing wet snow at his face. Link spluttered, wiped furiously at the cold, and glared. Lucky for him, though, he heard Dane finally stop, panting. Then he growled to himself.

"Oh, fuck it. If it has to be you better than that other ball-less wonder."

Link stared, snow dripping off his face, having no clue what he was talking about. Nani too was staring at him. Then, she tipped back her face and laughed.

"Oh, you! I remember now! You haven't changed at all." Then her face fell. "Oh my...Dane, what's happened?"

"I should be asking you that. What happened to you, Samantha? Where's Mom and Coral?"

"I..." her features furrowed, "I don't remember. I'm not even sure..." she looked hard at him, "You are my brother, right?"

"What's going on?" asked a small voice.

As one they all turned to the figure wrapped up so fully in the cloak only her pale face poked out. As she asked this, her eyes narrowed down on the older man who had helped her holding his trumpet in the square, watching the proceedings. Dane smiled as he also spotted the man, having been told about him by her on their way there.

"A lot, honey," he said. "A mighty lot."

Kane trotted over. "Uh, Nani, do you know what's going on here? And, uh," he leaned in closer and whispered, "I don't think that girl is wearing any clothes under that cloak."

**Epilogue**

The snow melted in a matter of days. Link eventually found the right time to ask if Nani (or Samantha, really), would come with him back to Hyrule. At first she was hesitant, but on talking with her newfound lost brother, Dane, realized that neither of them knew what had happened to their little sister and mother and they decided what better way to find out then on an adventure to Hyrule, where they had last seen them? The Snow Maiden, Rosy, had been reunited with her father and, since he was a traveling merchant anyways, he decided to go along too so that Rosy didn't have to choose whether to be with her father or the man she loved.

Kane, on the other hand, never really got what happened.

The night before they were to leave, he was still rehashing events.

"So, this lovely little caravan of yours that you've guys made involves two guys who mortally hate each other, a girl who once tried to freeze everyone to death, and my sister, who turns out is actually the sister of the crazy mean jerk who tried to kill you, and all this happened in a week?" he looked at Link disbelievingly as Nani-or, uh, Samantha-read her book. Dane and Rosy had fallen asleep on the rug before the fire, hands held.

Link just shrugged. Samantha glanced up from her book.

"What was that?"

"Oh, forget it. I just don't think this was a very well thought out story."

"How so?" asked Samantha, "ignoring the fact this isn't some story written by somebody."

"Well, I think it just, you know, moved a little too quick, don't you think?" he scooted his back against one of the chairs and folded his arms, scowling. "I mean, these sorts of things are suppose to last over a few months, at least! Where's all the building suspense and meticulous, realistic character building?"

"Kane, you don't even like books."

"How do you know?"

"I'm your sister."

"No you're not!"

When she gave him a half peeved, half hurt look, he sobered. Link watched in amusement as Kane scrambled to save himself.

"I mean, yes, you are my sister, of course, but technically..." he sighed, "oh, nevermind."

"Can you guys go somewhere else?" said Dane drowsily from the floor.

Rosy muttered something similar in her sleep and snuggled closer. Link and Samantha whispered apologies and left with Kane trailing behind with a disgusted look on his face.

"I live here, not them! Who gave them permission to be all goo-goo on my floor?"

Samantha sighed. "Kane."

"What?"

"If you want to face the wrath of Shadow, go for it. But I don't advise it." said Link.

"But he's _Dane_ now, isn't he suppose to be all good? Though I still don't get that either."

Link grinned with his teeth. "Oh, yeah, his name might've changed and he may not be so moody, but trust me, he hasn't changed that much."

"He reminds me a lot of you in a way," said Samantha thoughtfully.

The hero of time had the mind to look offended. Kane chuckled and walked ahead of them to the back door of the house.

"Come on, guys," he pulled out his boots by the door, "let's go do something crazy before you go, at least, like cow tipping or something."

And frankly, what happened after that, doesn't much matter, because it's quite obvious that they lived happily ever after. How? Because love is just love, and it's only as complicated as one makes it.


End file.
